Lesson 7 — ¿Qué hora es?

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Dialogue

Vocabulary
Luego	Then
Salgo	I leave

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Telling the time

Telling the time is easy in Spanish, and very similar to English. You use this construction: Son las hours y minutes

So, Son las tres y veinte would mean "It's twenty past three". To ask the time, you just use the question ¿Qué hora es? (literally: "What hour is it?"). However, this only works for times up to half-past the hour. How do you say "It's twenty to three", I hear you cry? For this, you have to use menos (meaning "less") instead of y (Son las cuatro menos diez means "It's ten to four"; you can also use para instead menos, usingo the same order you use in English.

Other typical time-telling phrases are depicted in the table below.

Inglés	Español
a.m.	de la mañana
p.m.	de la tarde
It's half-past hour	Son las hour y media
It's quarter-past hour	Son las hour y cuarto
It's quarter-to hour	Son las hour menos cuarto/es un cuarto para las hour

; Notes

• If there aren't any minutes, just say son las cinco ("It's 5 o'clock") or son las once ("It's 11 o'clock"). If you want, you can also say en punto to mean "o'clock".
• Remember: son means "they are", so son las... only works for numbers greater than one. To say "it's one o'clock", you have to say Es la una (or es la una en punto).

; Examples

• Son las ocho
• : It's 8 o'clock
• Son las nueve y media
• : It's half-past nine
• Son las seis menos cuarto/es un cuarto para las seis
• : It's quarter-to six
• Son las dos y veinte de la mañana
• : It's 2:20 a.m.

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When?

So, you now know how to tell the time in Spanish. Now let's use it to describe when something happens. To do this, you use a las followed by the time as described above (a las tres means "at 3 o'clock"). But what if you don't know a specific time? What about just "In the evening"? Just use por la, followed by one of the entries in the table (por la noche means "at night"):

Inglés	Español
Morning	Mañana
Afternoon	Tarde
Evening	Noche
Night

; Notes

• Since it's always "por la", this means that these times-of-day are all feminine.

; Examples

• A las ocho de la mañana, tomo mi desayuno.
• : At 8:00am, I eat breakfast.
• Por la tarde, le gusta ver la tele.
• : In the evening, He likes watching TV.
• Por la noche, les gusta mucho beber leche.
• : At night, they love drinking milk.

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Time-related Adverbs

It's all very well knowing how to say that you do things at a particular time, but what about more habitual actions? What do you do usually? Normally? Sometimes?

Inglés	Español
Usually	Usualmente
Normally	Normalmente
Often	A menudo
Sometimes	A veces
Occasionally	De vez en cuando
	Ocasionalmente
Rarely	Raramente
To be in the habit of	Soler

; Notes

• You should notice that all the words ending in "ly" in English end in mente in Spanish. To turn an adjective into an adverb: take the feminine form of the adjective, then add mente.
  • Thus, normal, raro, ocasional and usual are all adjectives.
  • Also, ruidosamente, tranquilamente, etc, are adverbs (you met tranquilo and ruidoso in lesson 4...)
• Soler is a UE stem-changing verb (suelo, sueles, suele, solemos, soléis, suelen), and it is followed by the infinitive (Suelo comer queso con pan, meaning "I usually eat cheese with bread").

; Examples

• A veces, bebemos vino tinto, pero nunca vino blanco.
• : Sometimes, we drink red wine, but never white wine.
• Suelo vivir en pisos; vivir en una casa es muy difícil.
• : I usually live in flats; living in a house is really difficult.
• De vez en cuando, juego al ajedrez, pero usualmente, practico judo.
• : Sometimes, I play chess, but usually I do judo.
• Normalmente a las cinco de la tarde, juego al fútbol.
• : Normally at 5pm, I play football/soccer.

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Reflexive verbs

Reflexive verbs are verbs where the subject and object are the same. "To wash oneself" or "to get oneself up". In Spanish, we do this by using a reflexive pronoun before the verb. We've already met these relfexive pronouns, along with a reflexive verb in the first lesson: llamarse ("to call oneself"). So, here are the reflexive pronouns:

Inglés	Español
Myself	Me
Yourself	Te
Himself Herself Itself	Se
Ourselves	Nos
Yourselves	Os
Themselves	Se

So, here is an example, using the verb lavarse ("to wash oneself"):

Inglés	Español
I wash myself	Me lavo
You wash yourself	Te lavas
He/she/it washes himself/herself/itself	Se lava
We wash ourselves	Nos lavamos
You wash yourselves	Os laváis
They wash themselves	Se lavan

So, now that you know how to conjugate them, it'd be useful to give you some examples:

Inglés	Español
To get (oneself) up	Levantarse
To shower (oneself)	Ducharse
To bathe (oneself)	Bañarse
To comb one's hair	Peinarse
To put one's make-up on	Maquillarse
To relax (oneself)	Relajarse

; Notes

• These are very similar to the indirect object pronouns used with gustar. Make sure you don't get them mixed up.
• When in the infinitive, the reflexive pronoun goes on the end of the verb as a suffix. For example, me gusta ducharme means "I like showering".

; Examples

• Por la mañana, me maquillo y me peino.
• : In the morning, I put my make-up on and comb my hair.
• ¿Cuándo te bañas?
• : When do you bathe?
• A las ocho de la mañana, nos levantamos.
• : At 8am, we get up.
• Nunca nos bañamos por la mañana; nos gusta ducharnos.
• : We never have a bath in the morning; we like to have a shower.
• Me encanta bañarme por la noche - es muy tranquilo.
• : I love having a bath in the evening - it's very quiet.
• Ocasionalmente, se ducha por la mañana, pero usualmente, le gusta bañarse por la tarde.
• : Ocassionally, he showers in the morning, but usually, he likes to have a bath in the afternoon.
• A las nueve de la tarde, me gusta mucho relajarme. Normalmente, bebo vino.
• : At 9pm, I like to relax. Normally, I drink wine.

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Summary

In this lesson, you have learnt

• How to ask for the time (¿Qué hora es?)
• How to tell the time (Son las cuatro y media; es la una menos cuarto)
• How to say the times of the day (por la manana; tarde; a las tres y diez)
• Various adverbs (ocasionalmente; normalmente; de vez en cuando; a menudo)
• How to use reflexive verbs (me baño; te relajas; se ducha; nos lavamos; os lavantáis; se maquillan)

You should now do the exercise related to each section (found here), and translate the dialogue at the top before moving on to lesson 8...