A1
Telling the time, days and dates
How to tell the time in French, how dates are ordered and written, and the article rules for days of the week.
The time
Heure cannot be dropped. English says it’s three; French must say three hours.
Il est trois heures.
it is three hours
It’s three o’clock.
Il est huit heures et demie.
it is eight hours and half
It’s half past eight.
| et quart | quarter past |
| et demie | half past |
| moins le quart | quarter to |
| midi / minuit | noon / midnight |
Il est trois.
Il est trois heures.
Heures is part of the expression. Without it the sentence has a number and nothing for the number to count.
Official times use the 24-hour clock throughout — quinze heures trente — and it is far more common in France than in English-speaking countries.
Days and months take no capital
On est lundi.
one is Monday
It’s Monday.
Lundi, mardi, mercredi, jeudi, vendredi, samedi, dimanche — all lowercase, as are janvier through décembre, and so are languages and nationalities used as adjectives: je parle français.
le lundi means every Monday
The article changes a specific day into a habit.
Je travaille le lundi.
I work the Monday
I work on Mondays.
Je travaille lundi — no article — means this coming Monday.
Dates
Day, then month, and the first of the month is the only ordinal.
le 14 juillet
the 14 July
the 14th of July
le premier mai
the first May
the 1st of May
le un mai
le premier mai
Only the first takes an ordinal. Every other date is a plain number — le deux mai, not le deuxième mai.