La Hora y la Frecuencia - Time and Frequency

You can already say where you are and what you do every day. Now you put a clock on it. Telling the time in Spanish is built around two short formulas — es la una for one o'clock, and son las… for everything else — plus a small kit of phrases for the half and quarter hours. Everything else falls out from there.

This lesson also gives you the frequency words that pair with your routine verbs: siempre, normalmente, a veces, casi nunca, nunca. Together with Lesson 2's reflexives, you can finally say sentences like siempre me levanto a las siete y media — and that's a complete answer to a real question.

Telling the Time

The Spanish way to say "it's X o'clock" depends on the hour:

• Es la una. – It's one o'clock. (singular, because una is one)
• Son las dos / tres / cuatro… – It's two / three / four o'clock. (plural, for everything from two onwards)

The article matches the hour: la una, las dos, las tres. Always feminine, because the implied noun is hora(s).

For the half and quarter hours, you tack on after the hour:

Spanish	English
es la una y cuarto	1:15
es la una y media	1:30
son las dos y cuarto	2:15
son las dos y media	2:30
son las tres menos cuarto	2:45
son las cuatro en punto	4:00 sharp

Notice that 2:45 is son las tres menos cuarto — literally "it's three minus a quarter". Spanish counts toward the next hour for the last fifteen minutes. You can do the same with minutes: son las tres menos diez ("ten to three").

For the in-between minutes, you just add y + minutes:

• Son las ocho y veinte. – It's 8:20.
• Son las nueve y diez. – It's 9:10.

Two special words skip the article: mediodía (noon) and medianoche (midnight). Es mediodía. Es medianoche.

At What Time? — A Las…

The question word is ¿a qué hora? ("at what time?"), and the answer uses a la / a las + the hour:

• ¿A qué hora te levantas? – What time do you get up?
• A las siete y media. – At half past seven.
• ¿A qué hora cenamos? – What time are we having dinner?
• A las diez en punto. – At ten on the dot.

To make it precise — morning, afternoon or night — Spaniards add de la mañana, de la tarde, de la noche:

• A las siete de la mañana. – At seven in the morning.
• A las cinco de la tarde. – At five in the afternoon.
• A las diez de la noche. – At ten at night.

Public timetables in Spain (trains, cinemas, official forms) use the 24-hour clock: el tren sale a las 19:30. In conversation, almost no one says "diecinueve y treinta" — they say a las siete y media de la tarde instead. Read 24-hour, speak 12-hour.

Frequency Adverbs

Routine sentences need a "how often" word. The everyday five:

Spanish	English
siempre	always
normalmente	usually
a menudo	often
a veces	sometimes
casi nunca	hardly ever
nunca	never

Position is flexible, but the safe spot is right before the verb:

• Siempre desayuno en casa. – I always have breakfast at home.
• Normalmente me ducho por la mañana. – I usually shower in the morning.
• A veces trabajamos los sábados. – Sometimes we work on Saturdays.

There's a quirk with nunca. When it goes before the verb, you don't need no:

• Nunca tomo café por la noche. – I never drink coffee at night.

When nunca goes after the verb, you must add no in front:

• No tomo café nunca. – I never drink coffee.

Same idea, different word order. Both are correct; the first is slightly more formal, the second sounds more emphatic.

A note on Castilian pronunciation: cinco, once and doce all contain the letter c before e or i, which in Spain is pronounced like the English th in think. So las once sounds like "lahs ON-they". This is the most reliable Castilian theta you'll meet — when telling the time, you use it constantly.

Practice

Words to Remember

Spanish	English
la hora	the time / hour
es la una	it's one o'clock
son las…	it's … o'clock
y cuarto	quarter past
y media	half past
menos cuarto	quarter to
en punto	on the dot
mediodía	noon
medianoche	midnight
de la mañana	a.m. / morning
de la tarde	p.m. / afternoon
de la noche	p.m. / night
siempre	always
normalmente	usually
a veces	sometimes
casi nunca	hardly ever
nunca	never

Conversation

Picking a time for dinner

Lucía: ¿A qué hora quedamos esta noche? What time shall we meet tonight?

Diego: ¿A las diez? At ten?

Lucía: Mejor a las diez y media. Salgo del curro a las nueve. Better at ten thirty. I finish work at nine.

Asking about the train

Pablo: Perdona, ¿a qué hora sale el tren? Excuse me, what time does the train leave?

Empleado: A las siete y media de la tarde, en punto. At half past seven in the evening, on the dot.

Pablo: Vale, gracias. OK, thanks.

Talking about Saturday mornings

María: ¿A qué hora te levantas los sábados? What time do you get up on Saturdays?

Carmen: Nunca me levanto antes de las once. I never get up before eleven.

María: Yo normalmente a las nueve. I usually get up at nine.