Time in Spanish

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This article is about time. After reading this article you can ask, understand and tell what the time, day and date is. You also learn to refer to years and ages. In this article knowledge of numbers in Spanish is neccesary. Read on quickly, no time to waste! ;-)

What time is it?

Below you can find some examples of expressions of time. Note that one o'clock is singular, and the rest plural.

¿Qué hora es?
What time is it?

Es la una.
It's one o'clock.

Son las dos.
It's two o'clock.

Son las cuatro de la tarde.
It's four o'clock in the afternoon.

Te veo a las tres.
I see you at three.

A little more detailed with half hours and quarters:

Es la una y media.
It's half past one.

Son las siete menos cuarto.
It's a quarter to seven.

Days of the week

In the table below you can see the days of the week.

lunes	Monday
martes	Tuesday
miércoles	Wednesday
jueves	Thursday
viernes	Friday
sábado	Saturday
domingo	Sunday

Some examples:

¿Qué día es hoy?
What days is it today?

Hoy es jueves.
Today is Thursday.

Te lo doy el sábado que viene.
I give it to you next Saturday.

Months

In the table below you can see the months of the year. Note that the names resemble their English equivalents very much:

enero	January	julio	July
febrero	February	agosto	August
marzo	March	septiembre	September
abril	April	octubre	October
mayo	May	noviembre	November
junio	June	diciembre	December

Examples:

En abril, aguas mil.
In April it rains a lot. (free translation)

Por mayo cada día un rayo.
In May every day a ray (of sun).

Dates

In Spanish dates are used in the following way:

¿Qué fecha es hoy?
What is today's date?

Hoy es el veintidos de junio.
Today is June 22.

Estamos a catorce de febrero.
Today is February 14.

Note that formulating with estar no article is used. For the first day of the week both the cardinal and ordinal number can be used:

Hoy es el uno/primero de agosto.
Today is the 1st of August.

Years in dates are used as follows:

Nací el diez de octubre de mil novecientos setenta y ocho.
I was born on October 10 of 1978.

In letters the date is always formulated as follows:

Málaga, 3 de septiembre de 2009

Centuries are formulated as follows:

el siglo veintiuno
the twenty-first century