BASIC SPANISH: A GRAMMAR AND WORKBOOK

As in English ‘quarter past’ and ‘half past’ are usually expressed with words rather than
with the numbers themselves:

Son las doce y media.

It’s half past twelve.

Son las siete y cuarto.

It’s quarter past seven.

To express a number of minutes before the hour menos is used in the same way as y:

Son las tres menos cinco.

It’s five minutes to three.

Es la una menos cuarto.

It’s quarter to one.

If you want to specify the part of the day you are referring to you can add to the above
expressions:
de la mañana morning
de la tarde afternoon, roughly until dark
de la noche after dark

Instead of son las doce de la noche you can say es medianoche and instead of son las
doce de la mañana you can say es mediodia.
You cannot add fractions to midnight or midday like you do in English: ‘half past
midnight’ = las doce y cuarto de la noche (not *medianoche y cuarto).
If you want to say ‘at’ a certain time as opposed to ‘it is...’, you just replace es or son
with a:

a las diez y media de la mañana

at 10.30 a.m.

a medianoche

at midnight

Two useful expressions to remember are sobre (about) and en punto (precisely):

sobre las ocho

about eight o’clock

a las dos en punto

at two on the dot

Basic Spanish: A grammar and workbook 12