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Telling the time in Danish
Mar. 5th, 2019 01:51 pmThe P4 København morning show includes a lot of telling the time. I spent a couple of weeks listening carefully so i could get lots of different styles of how it may be done.
I include a literal translation, purely so that non-Danish speakers can appreciate the creative variety of ways we are able to tell the time in Danish.
My favourites are the minutes until or after "halv ni" which is "half way to nine" not "half past nine" as we would say in English. So "fem minutter i halv ni" means "five minutes until it's half way to nine" which means "twenty five past eight".
I notice that they never say something like "five past eight" or "ten to nine", ie they always include the word "minutes". So it's "fem minutter over otte" and "ti minutter i ni".
( time examples )
I include a literal translation, purely so that non-Danish speakers can appreciate the creative variety of ways we are able to tell the time in Danish.
My favourites are the minutes until or after "halv ni" which is "half way to nine" not "half past nine" as we would say in English. So "fem minutter i halv ni" means "five minutes until it's half way to nine" which means "twenty five past eight".
I notice that they never say something like "five past eight" or "ten to nine", ie they always include the word "minutes". So it's "fem minutter over otte" and "ti minutter i ni".
( time examples )
