Russian phrasebook
Phrases in Russian with audio and video
How to tell the time
This is an easy question: what time is it? Now you'll be able to answer that in no time. We can say that in Russian there are two ways of telling the time. Here we'll learn the easy one where, for example, for 8:15 we say "It's eight fifteen". In the difficult way (that we won't learn) we would say: "it's fifteen minutes of the ninth hour". In the end what matters is knowing how to tell the right time:
Part 1: Video
Summary of this topic with images and sound:
Watch the most important words and phrases of this topic below.
Part 2: Audio and explanations
Listen to the audio, read the explanations and get ready to learn real Russian.
How to ask "what time is it?
Here you have two ways of asking the same question. Both are equally used, so there isn't one option more important than the other. Listen to the audio carefully and repeat them. Then choose the one you like most and use it:
It's three o'clock
This is very easy. Just say the numbers up to 12 and add the Russian word for "hours". For example for 3 o'clock in Russian we say "3 hours". Pay attention to the way we say "hours" according to the number:
Час.
chas
It's one o'clock.
If we want to say "it's one o'clock" in Russian, we just say "hour".
Два часа́.
dva cha-sá
It's two o'clock.
As you can see, in Russian we don't say "it's...". We start with the numbers without adding anything before them.
Pay attention to the word "hours" in Russian. From 2 to 4 we say "часа", and from 5 onwards we say "часов". There's a grammatical explanation for this, but you don't need to know it to tell the time correctly.
Telling the minutes in Russian
As we've mentioned at the beginning, here we'll learn the easy way to tell the time. This is as easy as saying this: number of hours + number of minutes. If you don't know how to count in Russian visit our section on numbers..
More useful words
You've learnt enough to ask and tell the time in real Russian. Now you're going to learn to differentiate between the morning and the evening, which can come in handy in certain situations:
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