LESSON NOTES

Turkish Teachers Answer Your Questions

#13
How Do You Ask for the Time in Turkish?

CONTENTS

Dialogue - Turkish
Main
English
Vocabulary
Sample sentences
Grammar
Cultural insight

# 13
TURKISHCLASS101.COM TURKISH TEACHERS ANSWER YOUR QUESTIONS #13 1
DIALOGUE - TURKISH
MAIN

1. Sasha Lee : Saat kaç?

2. Kerim Kandıralı : Saat üçü çeyrek geçiyor.

ENGLISH

1. Sasha Lee : What time is it?

2. Kerim Kandirali : It's 3:15 PM.

VOCABULARY

Turkish English Class

saat hour noun

buçuk half past phrase

var have or there is verb

geçmek to pass verb

Saat kaç? What time is it? sentence

sabah morning noun

öğleden sonra afternoon noun

akşam evening noun

gece night noun

SAMPLE SENTENCES

bir saat Bir saat içinde işten çıkıp evde olacağım.

one hour I’ll be home from work in an hour.

Bir saat için Ben her gün 8 saat uyurum.

for one hour I sleep for 8 hours every day.

Bir saatte 60 dakika vardır. 9:30 ile dokuz buçuk aynı.

There are 60 minutes in an hour. 9:30 is the same as half past nine.

dokuz buçuk Kız kardeşin var mı?

half past nine "Do you have a sister?"

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 Kraliyet sarayını şimdi geçtik. Pazar sabahı

"We have just passed the Royal Palace." Sunday morning

Sabahları koşarım Sabahları

I jog in the morning. in the morning

Sabah sisi Sabah erken saatlerde

morning fog early in the morning

Bu sabah, otoyolda trafik durumu normal. O her sabah saat 8'de kalkar

Traffic conditions on the highway are normal this He gets up at 8 a.m. every morning.
morning.

Sabah duşu almak Gün içinde bir planım olmadığı zaman sabahları
erken kalkmaktan nefret ederim.
shower in the morning
"I hate waking up early in the morning when I
don't have plans for the day."

Her sabah yürüyüşe çıkarlar. Mağazalarımız yarın sabah tekrar açılacaktır.

"They go for a walk every morning." "Our stores will open again tomorrow morning."

Yılın bu zamanında sabahları halen soğuk olur. Oğlan, sabahları uyanır.

"At this time of the year it is still cold in the "The boy wakes up in the morning."
morning."

Akşam yemeğinden sonra biz akşamın tadını Her akşam

çıkarırız
every evening
After dinner we enjoy our evening.

Ben gündüzleri çok çalışırım ki sonra akşamları Akşam günbatımı

rahatlayabilirim
evening sunset
I work hard during the day, so I relax in the
evening.

Şehirde akşam Tenis kortu akşam da açık.

evening in the city "The tennis court is open in the evening, too."

Sıcak yaz akşamları genellikle kart oyunu oynarız. İyi akşamlar!

"We often play cards on a warm summer "Have a nice evening!"

evening."

Cuma gecesi için planın nedir? Haydi gece yarısı buluşalım.

"What's your plan for this Friday night?" "Let's meet at midnight."

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GRAMMAR
The Focus of This Lesson Is Asking for the Time

Telling the Time

Asking for the time is one of the most fundamental things in nearly all languages. In this lesson, you will
learn how to ask for the time and answer questions about it. But, before this, we need to discuss some
basics.

First, you should know your Turkish numbers. Once you do, you should also learn the basic terms for
telling the time—such as "hour" and "minutes."

Lastly, remember that Turkish makes use of vowel harmony, and so it's necessary to add the correct
buffers and suffixes to your numbers. Once you understand how to do that, telling the time is just a
matter of following a formula!

Let's begin by looking at how to ask for the time.

Saat kaç?
"What time is it?"

The first word, saat, is of Arabic origin and means "hour."

The second word, kaç, is of Turkic origin and corresponds to "how much, how many?"

This is the most common informal way to ask for the time. If you are in a formal situation, you could ask
more politely by adding "Excuse me" in front of the question, like this:

Affedersiniz, saatiniz kaç?

"Excuse me, what time is it?"

In this formal example, we have also added the formal suffix -niz to the second person singular saatiniz.

Now, let's look at how to answer this question!

To say the time to the exact hour, first say:

saat
"hour"

Then you can add the number. For example:

Saat üç.
"It's three o'clock."
Saat beş.
"It's five o'clock."

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Now, let's look at how to tell time that is past the hour.

As before, we say the hour, but now we also add a vowel suffix to the number. Choose one of the
following suffixes, according to the vowel harmony rules: i, ı, u, ü.

After that, add the minutes. Then finally, say the following word:

geçiyor
"past"

This verb for "past" comes at the end when you are telling the time. It is the present continuous tense of
geçmek "to pass."

Let's look at some examples:

Saat onu beş geçiyor.

"It's five past ten."

This literally translates to "hour ten, five past."

The word on means "ten." In this case, it has the suffix -u.

Saat on ikiyi yirmi geçiyor.

"It's twenty past twelve."

Now, let's look at an example that has "quarter past."

Saat üçü çeyrek geçiyor.

"It's a quarter past three."

When you want to say "quarter past," the same rules apply, except that the word çeyrek "quarter" is
used in the place of minutes.

Saat onbiri çeyrek geçiyor.

"It's a quarter past eleven."

We will now look at saying "half past." In Turkish, saying "half past" is as simple as saying the whole hour
because you don't have to worry about a buffer or a suffix. You just add the word for "half" after saying
the hour.

For example:

Saat iki buçuk.

"It's half past two."

The word buçuk means "half."

Saat dokuz buçuk.

"It's half past nine."

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To know how to completely tell the time in Turkish, there is just one more thing to learn. We need to
learn how to say a time that is "to" the hour!

To tell the time to the hour, the hour comes first, followed by the buffer, and then a suffix. This suffix will
be: -e or an -a. After that, say the minutes and finally:

var
"there is, there are"

Despite its actual meaning, we use it with time phrases to mean "to."

For example:

Saat dokuza beş var.

"It's five to nine."

This is literally "hour nine, five to."

Saat yediye on var.

"It's ten to seven."

To say quarter to the hour, the same rules apply but we use çeyrek where the minutes should be.

Saat üçe çeyrek var.

"It's quarter to three."

Saat on ikiye çeyrek var.

"It's quarter to twelve."

One More Way to Ask

Here is another, more subtle way to ask the time.

Saatiniz var mı?

"Do you have a watch?"

Although you're asking about a watch, it has the implication of "If you have one, please tell me the time."
CULTURAL INSIGHT
In daily life, when having informal conversations, people in Turkey use the twelve-hour clock, but they
don't say "a.m" and "p.m" like we do in English. When they want to clarify whether the mentioned time is
before or after twelve a.m., they add the appropriate time-of-day word.

sabah
"morning"

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 öğleden sonra
"afternoon"
akşam
"evening"
gece
"night"

For example:

Sabah beş.
"It's five a.m."
Gece ikide yattım.
"I went to bed at two in the morning."

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