¶ Asking What Time It Is
Hey there, welcome to Mama Dutch Dutch Lessons for Busy People. This morning one of my students asked me, hey Mariska, what tight is the less? Of course he meant Hi Mariska, what time is our lesson? But in Dutch we don't say what. Which means literally what time? But we ask how late. We ask how late is our lesson? Ho late is onze Hoe laat is de let? So we ask how late. So if you wanna ask uh about the time, we're not going but tight is it?
Oh but it is Hulat is it Who lat is head one more time say it with me Who lat is it? Good, now you know. So the question is who lat is het and the answer starts with it is being het is. For example, it's now almost two o'clock. Who late is it? Het is twee uur, or specific, het is bijna almost bijna twee uur.
¶ Telling Full and 'Over' Hours
The time is a little bit weird in Dutch. Well a little bit very weird. Shall we try it? Alright, here we go. Het is nu twee uur. It's now two o'clock. For the full hour we say uur. Het is twee uur. When we um start talking about the minutes after the full hour, we leave the hour away, just like the English o'clock. Zo, vijf paast twee. Het is vijf over twee. Vijf over twee. Five minutes later, het is tien over twee.
And fifteen minutes after two would be het is quart over twee. Het is quart over twee. So far so good? If we go back before the two, we would say head is quart four. Het is teen four twenty being quarter to two, ten to two, and then of course five to two would be het is five. Now something weird happens. Are you ready? After the quarter past two, we start speaking about the next one.
¶ Mastering the Dutch 'Half' System
3 in this case because we started at 2 and now we're going to be starting at 3. Uh talking about the 3. And then we're not only talking about the three, but we're talking about the half hour and then the minutes that are still left before the half hour. Mm-hmm. Are you there? So half hour past two would be half three. Half three. Half three, which means two thirty. Two and a half. Now if it's twenty minutes past two, we count it as ten minutes before half past two.
What? Say again? Okay. Ten minutes before half past two. So being teen four half three. Wanna write this one down: tien, voor half drie. So we had twee uur vijf over twee, tien over twee, kwart over twee. Thin for half 3. twenty past two, ten for half three. Then five minutes later it will be five for half three, so five minutes before. And then we're at the half, half three. Same goes when we uh count uh further. So it will be half three, five oh
Tien over half drie. So past half drie. And then kwart voor drie. Tien voor drie. Vijf voor drie. And drie uur. Yes. One more time. Nog een keer. Het is twee u. Oh, wait. The question is: Hoe laat is het? Hoe laat is het? Het is twee uur. Het is vijf over twee. Het is tien over twee. Het is kwart over twee. Het is tien voor half drie. Het is vijf voor half drie. Het is half drie. It is 5 over half 3.
Het is tien over half drie. Het is kwart voor drie. Het is tien voor drie. Het is vijf voor drie. Het is drie. We made it the whole round of Now many uh students ask me what? Do you really use this system? Doesn't everyone just say it's twenty past two? No. We're old school. We keep this system and everyone agrees on it. Sometimes you'll hear people say it's twenty past two, but no. It's much more um into our system to say teen
Sorry about that. Cannot help it. I hope you still uh enjoy learning Dutch. If you want to know more, follow me on my Instagram site Mamadutch. And we'll get back to you. Doi doi.