Hacker News Reader

Comment by function_seven | Hacker News Reader

Even worse, I don’t know what “it’s a quarter of three” means. I’ve looked it up, but for some reason I forget it by the time it’s quarter of four!

View on HN

Took me ages to remember what folks in the UK mean when they say “half six” — it’s 6:30, not “half to six” — even just now I had to double check myself.

This is varies by language. In several languages including English, "half six" is an abbreviation of "half [[an hour] past] six". In others, it's "half [[an hour] to] six".

To this American, "half six" sounds like a roundabout way to describe the number three and not a way to says it's 6:30 (or 5:30 for that matter).

I've never heard anyone say that

Yeah I find this one exhausting too because meanwhile in German "half six" is exactly that, "halfway to six"

But "halfway to six" should be three, surely? (Sorry!)

As a British person who learned Swedish -- which also uses that convention -- around the age of 10, I often found myself a little uncertain when hearing "half six" in English, as I grew up with the more explicit "half past six".

in austria you can learn about "viertel sechs" (quarter six) and "dreiviertel sechs" (three quarter six).

i'll let you work out whether those are "viertel nach fünf" (quarter past five) or "viertel vor sechs" (quarter to six), or "viertel nach sechs" (quarter past six), or "viertel vor sieben" (quarter two seven)

I confuse Finns by saying (at 2330 / 1130pm) that it's "half zero" (puoli nolla). Apparently the consensus concept does not include negative times.

Ha, like in french for some reason you can say "and a half" for hours up to 12 but not beyond. Onze heures et demi. Treize heures trente.

Typically we say half past six though which is a bit clearer. That can sometimes get a little blurred with accents particularly some northern ones haf ‘pa six.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com