Learn how to tell time in Turkish
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Intro |
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| Michael: How do you ask for the time in Turkish? |
| Dilek: And how do you tell the time? |
| Michael: At TurkishClass101.com, we hear these questions often. Consider the following situation: During a school break, Sasha Lee asks her friend, Kerim, about the time. They don't want to be late for their next class. Sasha asks, |
| "What time is it?" |
| Sasha Lee: Saat kaç? |
| Dialogue |
| Sasha Lee: Saat kaç? |
| Kerim Kandıralı: Saat üçü çeyrek geçiyor. |
| Michael: Once more with the English translation. |
| Sasha Lee: Saat kaç? |
| Michael: "What time is it?" |
| Kerim Kandıralı: Saat üçü çeyrek geçiyor. |
| Michael: "It's a quarter past three." |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: Asking for the time is one of the most fundamental things in nearly all languages. In this lesson, you will learn how to ask for the time and answer questions about it. But, before this, we need to discuss some basics. First, you should know your Turkish numbers. Once you do, you should also learn the basic terms for telling the time—such as "hour" and "minutes." Lastly, remember that Turkish makes use of vowel harmony, and so it's necessary to add the correct buffers and suffixes to your numbers. Once you understand how to do that, telling the time is just a matter of following a formula! |
| [Recall 1] |
| Michael: Let us take a closer look at the dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Sasha Lee asks, "What time is it?" |
| [PAUSE 4 SEC] |
| Dilek as Sasha Lee: Saat kaç? |
| To ask the time in Turkish, you can just say |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat kaç? [SLOWLY] Saat kaç? |
| Michael: The first word, |
| Dilek: saat |
| Michael: is a noun of Arabic origin, meaning "hour." The second word, |
| Dilek: kaç |
| Michael: is a word of Turkic origin, and it corresponds to "how much?" or "how many?" |
| This is the most common informal way to ask for the time. If you are in a formal situation, you could ask more politely by adding "Excuse me" in front of the question, like this: |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Affedersiniz, saatiniz kaç? [SLOWLY] Affedersiniz, saatiniz kaç? |
| Michael: "Excuse me, what time is it?" We also added the formal suffix |
| Dilek: -niz |
| Michael: to the second person singular |
| Dilek: saatiniz. |
| Michael: Next, we should learn how to answer this question! To say the time to the exact hour, first say the word for "hour," which is |
| Dilek: Saat |
| Michael: followed by the number. So, saying "It's three o'clock" in Turkish will be |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat üç [SLOWLY] Saat üç |
| Michael: And saying "It's five o'clock" will be |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat beş [SLOWLY] Saat beş |
| Michael: Now, we should talk about time past the hour. Once you learn the basic formula, it's easy! As before, we say the hour, but now we also add a vowel suffix to the number. Choose one of the following suffixes, according to the vowel harmony rules: |
| Dilek: i, ı, u, ü |
| Michael: After that, add the minutes. Finally, say the word meaning "past" |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] geçiyor [SLOWLY] geçiyor |
| Michael: This verb for "past" comes at the end when you are telling the time. It is the present continuous tense of |
| Dilek: geçmek |
| Michael: meaning "to pass." We can practice some time phrases using this formula. If the time is five past ten, you will say |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat onu beş geçiyor [SLOWLY] Saat onu beş geçiyor |
| Michael: which literally translates to "hour ten, five past." The word |
| Dilek: on |
| Michael: means "ten," and it took the suffix |
| Dilek: u |
| Michael: Don't worry if this sounds complicated—you will get it! Let us try another one. What time do you think this is? |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat on ikiyi yirmi geçiyor. [SLOWLY] Saat on ikiyi yirmi geçiyor. |
| Michael: Did you get that? It means "It's twenty past twelve." |
| [Recall 2] |
| Michael: Now, let us take a look at our second sentence from the main dialogue. |
| Do you remember how Kerim says "It's a quarter past three?" |
| [PAUSE 4 SEC] |
| Dilek as Kerim Kandirali: Saat üçü çeyrek geçiyor. |
| Michael: When you want to say "quarter past," the same rules apply, except that the word |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] çeyrek [SLOWLY] çeyrek |
| Michael: meaning "quarter," is used in the place of minutes. In other words, this phrase translates as "Hour three, quarter past." |
| Here is another example. |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat onbiri çeyrek geçiyor. [SLOWLY] Saat onbiri çeyrek geçiyor. |
| Michael: "It's a quarter past eleven." And now, we should also learn how to say "half past the hour." In Turkish, saying "half past" is as simple as saying the whole hour because you don't have to worry about a buffer or a suffix. You just add the word for "half" after saying the hour. Like this: |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat iki buçuk. [SLOWLY] Saat iki buçuk. |
| Michael: "It's half past two." The word |
| Dilek: buçuk |
| Michael: means "half." Let's try another one! Can you guess what this time is? |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat dokuz buçuk [SLOWLY] Saat dokuz buçuk |
| Michael: Could you translate that? It means "Half past nine." Now, there is one last part to learn, and that is the time to the hour. To tell the time to the hour, the hour comes first, followed by the buffer, and then a suffix. This suffix will be |
| Dilek: either an -e or an -a. |
| Michael: After that, say the minutes, and finally the word |
| Dilek: var, |
| Michael: which actually means "there is" or "there are," but we use it to say "to." Let us put these all together now, so it will make more sense. If the time is five to nine, we say |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat dokuza beş var [SLOWLY] Saat dokuza beş var |
| Michael: Literally, it translates to "Hour nine, five to." And, if the time is ten to seven, it will be |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat yediye on var [SLOWLY] Saat yediye on var |
| Michael: Finally, we will learn how to say "quarter to the hour." To say "quarter to," the same rules apply, except that the word |
| Dilek: çeyrek |
| Michael: is used where the minutes would have gone. Like this: |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat üçe çeyrek var. [SLOWLY] Saat üçe çeyrek var, |
| Michael: meaning "It's quarter to three." We can do one more. |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saat on ikiye çeyrek var. [SLOWLY] Saat on ikiye çeyrek var. |
| Michael: Did you get that? She said, "It's quarter to twelve." |
| Michael: In this lesson, you learned how to ask about the time in Turkish. You also learned how to say the time to the hour, past the hour, and before the hour. |
| Expansion |
| Michael: Another way to ask the time is: |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Saatiniz var mı? [SLOWLY] Saatiniz var mı? |
| Michael: It literally means "Do you have a watch," but the implication is "If you have one, please tell me the time." |
| Cultural Insight |
| Michael: In daily life, when having informal conversations, people in Turkey use the twelve-hour clock, but they don't say "a.m" and "p.m" like we do in English. When they want to clarify whether the mentioned time is before or after twelve p.m., they add the appropriate time-of-day word. So "morning" is |
| Dilek: Sabah |
| Michael: So, to say "five a.m.." you say |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Sabah beş. [SLOWLY] Sabah beş. |
| Michael: The term for "afternoon" is: |
| Dilek: Öğleden sonra |
| Michael: "Evening" is |
| Dilek: Akşam |
| Michael: and "night" is: |
| Dilek: Gece |
| Michael: So, if you state "I went to bed at two in the morning," it is still night time, so you would say: |
| Dilek: [NORMAL] Gece ikide yattım. [SLOWLY] Gece ikide yattım. |
Outro |
| Michael: Do you have any more questions? We're here to answer them! |
| Dilek: Hoşçakalın! |
| Michael: See you soon! |
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