What Time Is It in Spanish? Ask + Tell Time Naturally

Ask ¿Qué hora es? for “What time is it?” Answer Es la una at one o’clock and Son las dos, tres, cuatro… for the other hours. Add minutes with y—son las tres y veinte—or use menos to count down to the next hour—son las cuatro menos diez.

The Real Academia Española entry for hora covers the unit and point in time. The RAE’s usage guide for hora documents central ways of asking and stating time. Those standards do not erase differences in 12-hour versus 24-hour speech, schedules, or preferred minute expressions across Spanish-speaking communities.

Ask for the time or ask when something happens

Qué hora asks which clock hour it is. A qué hora includes a because it asks the scheduled point at which an event occurs. Do not copy the English question word “when” into every schedule question.

Tell the hour with es la or son las

One o’clock is singular: Es la una. Other clock hours are plural: Son las dos, son las cinco, and son las once. The article and noun are usually understood even when hora is not spoken.

Both “hour plus minutes” and “next hour minus minutes” patterns are heard. A speaker may prefer seis cuarenta, seis y cuarenta, or siete menos veinte for 6:40 depending on context and region. Learn to recognise all three before trying to force one rule on every exchange.

Add minutes, quarter, and half

Use y after the hour for minutes that follow it:

• 9:10 — Son las nueve y diez.
• 10:15 — Son las diez y cuarto.
• 11:30 — Son las once y media.
• 1:35 — Es la una y treinta y cinco.

Use menos with the next hour to count backwards:

• 2:45 — Son las tres menos cuarto.
• 3:50 — Son las cuatro menos diez.
• 12:55 — Es la una menos cinco.

Notice that the verb follows the hour you actually name. Es la una menos cinco is singular because the sentence names la una, even though the digital display reads 12:55. Review the full numbers in Spanish 1–100 chart if minute values slow the exchange down.

When the appointment also needs a day, pair the clock form with the Spanish days-of-the-week guide: el jueves a las dos identifies both the weekday and the time.

Clarify morning, afternoon, evening, and night

Add a part of the day when a 12-hour time could be ambiguous:

• a las ocho de la mañana — at eight in the morning
• a las tres de la tarde — at three in the afternoon
• a las nueve de la noche — at nine at night
• a la una de la madrugada — at one in the early morning
• al mediodía — at noon
• a medianoche — at midnight

The boundaries between tarde, noche, and madrugada are not fixed to one universal clock time. Meals, daylight, work patterns, and local convention all influence the label. The greetings in good morning in Spanish, good afternoon in Spanish, and good night in Spanish have similar context-sensitive borders.

Use 24-hour time for schedules

Transport, medical, workplace, and written schedules frequently use a 24-hour display. A listing such as 18:30 may be spoken as dieciocho treinta in a formal announcement or converted conversationally to las seis y media de la tarde. Confirm the date and time zone when either could be ambiguous.

At a station:

Perdón, ¿a qué hora sale el tren? — Sale a las dieciocho treinta.

Excuse me, what time does the train leave? — It leaves at 18:30.

Entonces, ¿a las seis y media de la tarde? — Sí, exactamente.

So, at six thirty in the evening? — Yes, exactly.

Repeating the time in a second form is a useful confirmation, especially when the difference between trece and treinta changes the plan.

Make appointments and confirm them

At work or with friends:

¿A qué hora es la llamada? — A las diez y cuarto.

What time is the call? — At quarter past ten.

¿Te va bien a las diez y cuarto? — Sí. Nos vemos entonces.

Does quarter past ten work for you? — Yes. See you then.

At a restaurant:

Quisiera reservar una mesa para las ocho de la noche. — ¿Para cuántas personas?

I’d like to reserve a table for eight in the evening. — For how many people?

At parting, match the time-sensitive greeting to the situation or use the broader phrase from have a good day in Spanish.

A three-step clock drill

1. Read a random digital time aloud with es la or son las.
2. Say the same time a second way, such as seis cuarenta and siete menos veinte.
3. Put it in a schedule question and confirmation: ¿A qué hora sale? ¿A las 6:40?

Practise twelve useful displays: 1:00, 2:05, 3:10, 4:15, 5:20, 6:25, 7:30, 8:35, 9:40, 10:45, 11:50, and 12:55. Then repeat with 24-hour displays and a part of the day. Focus on accurate confirmation rather than speed.

Limits, scheduling safety, and disclosure

A phrase guide cannot verify an appointment, transport timetable, daylight saving change, or time zone. For flights, healthcare, legal deadlines, and other consequential events, check the official written schedule and repeat the date, location, and zone. Regional speech patterns may differ from the forms selected here without being incorrect.

LinguaLive provides paid AI conversation exercises and may gain if a reader practises time dialogues in the product. That commercial relationship does not make generated speech or transcription authoritative for a real schedule.

Frequently asked questions

How do you ask what time it is in Spanish?

Ask ¿Qué hora es? To ask when an event happens, use ¿A qué hora…? followed by the event, such as ¿A qué hora es la cita?

Why is one o'clock es la una?

One o’clock is grammatically singular, so Spanish uses es la una. The other hours are plural and normally take son las.

How do you say 3:30 in Spanish?

Say Son las tres y media. You can also hear numerical minute forms in some contexts, but y media is a broadly useful way to express half past.

How do you say 6:45 in Spanish?

Say Son las seis y cuarenta y cinco or Son las siete menos cuarto. Speaker, region, and context influence which pattern is more natural.

Sources and editorial review

This guide was checked against its primary official or academic reference on 28 August 2026. Language usage can vary by region, relationship, and situation. Review the primary source.