Congrats.
Some German natives may argue that the time short forms are wrong as they prefer "dreiviertel" instead of "viertel vor".
Some German natives may argue that the time short forms are wrong as they prefer "dreiviertel" instead of "viertel vor".
Before the ubiquity of watches, time was announced using church clocks and bell strikes. There's a big bell for hours (low pitch) and a smaller one for announcing quarters (higher pitch).
Signalling zero is not possible using "zero bell strikes", so 00:00 is signalled by 4 strikes of the quarters bell and 12 strikes of the hour bell.
Thus, the sequences go like:
11:15 1x quarter bell
11:30 2x quarter bell
11:45 3x quarter bell
12:00 4x quarter bell + 1x hour bell
Basically it makes sense then as all the quarters belong to the same hour.
'dreiviertel Vier' is short for 'dreiviertel der vierten Stunde des Tages'.
If I try to rationalize it, it is probably that a quarter (to me) is not a distance or difference, but a single thing. So my internal parser expects a Genitiv or another thing after it, not a preposition like 'vor' or 'nach'. 'Zehn Minuten vor/nach X' sounds fine to me, 'eine viertel Stunde vor/nach X' too, but 'viertel vor/nach X' just doesn't.
Yeah? Well, you know, thats just like uh your opinion, man.
And, its dismissive and ignorant. IMHO.