I’m confused. french time telling grammar?
I have a project due for french class which involves telling the time. I have an advantage as my uncle is french so he has helped me with some of the grammar, except i’m left a bit puzzled after something that he emailed me. As we all know (we, meaning people who speak french or who are learning) french time is said in 24 hour format, using ‘midi’ for 12 o’clock noon, ‘demi’ for half past, ‘le quart’ for quarter past and ‘moins le quart’ for quarter to, but he has given me this reply to one of my sentences..:
“In French you don’t say “quatorze heures moins le quart” you have to chose between:
deux heures moins le quart OR treize heure quarante cinq”
I don’t get it, if you say deux heures moins le quart you’d be refering to 2 in the morning, right? and my french teacher only wants us to use le quart, moins le quart and demi/e to signify the minutes that have passed, not ‘quarante cinq’, the actual number.
I appologise if this is a long and confusing question, but I really must clarify this grammar rule! Merci!!
Hmm interesting I never knew this. Perhaps this is just cultural stuff. Check out this link of another yahoo!answer question that I found. It doesn’t really answer your question, but it confirms your uncle’s statement.
Hope you get a good answer!
The afternoon if you rarely say that in the afternoon you are not obliged to precise that in the afternoon if you can say quatorze heure quarante cinq is also true but you want to precise de.