Time in Portuguese: How to Tell and Ask the Time

Time in Portuguese: the essentials

Learning to tell time in Portuguese is one of those small skills that pays off from your very first day in a Portuguese-speaking place. You need it to catch a bus, to make a dinner plan, to understand when a shop opens, and to answer the stranger who stops you on the street with a quick que horas são? The good news is that the whole system is built from a short list of parts, and once you have those parts you can produce any time on the clock without memorizing hundreds of separate phrases.

Here is the shape of it in one breath. You ask with que horas são (literally "what hours are they"). You answer with é for one o'clock and são for every other hour, because Portuguese treats one as singular and everything from two upward as plural. You attach minutes with e (and) after the hour, or with para (to) before the next hour. You say "half past" with meia, and you replace AM and PM with a period of the day: da manhã (in the morning), da tarde (in the afternoon), or da noite (at night). That is genuinely most of it.

The rest of this guide takes each of those parts slowly, shows you the numbers, walks through examples for every awkward case, and points out where Brazilian and European Portuguese quietly disagree. If you are still building your foundation with counting, it is worth pairing this with our wider guide on how to learn Portuguese, because numbers and time reinforce each other and both come up constantly in real conversation.

Asking the time: Que horas são?

The everyday way to ask the time in Portuguese is Que horas são? Word for word this is "what hours are they?", which sounds odd translated straight into English but is perfectly natural in Portuguese. The word hora means "hour," and because the clock is thought of in the plural, the verb is são ("they are"). You will hear this exact phrase everywhere, from Lisbon to São Paulo, so it is the first thing worth locking in.

If you want to soften it, which is polite when stopping a stranger, add por favor (please) or com licença (excuse me) at the front or back: Com licença, que horas são, por favor? There is also a common casual version, especially in Brazil: Tem horas?, literally "do you have hours?", which works the way English speakers say "got the time?" You might also hear Você sabe que horas são? (do you know what time it is?), which is a touch gentler still.

There is a second question you need almost as often, and it is not the same as asking the current time. When you want to know when something happens, the start of a film, the departure of a train, the opening of a shop, you ask A que horas?, meaning "at what time?" So you might say A que horas começa o filme? (at what time does the film start?) or A que horas abre a loja? (at what time does the shop open?). Keep these two apart in your head: Que horas são? asks for the current time, and A que horas...? asks when an event happens.

Telling the hour: são and é

Now the reply. This is where the one rule that trips up almost every beginner lives, so it is worth slowing down. Portuguese uses two different verbs depending on the hour, and the choice is not random: it follows singular versus plural.

For one o'clock, the hour is grammatically singular (one hour), so you use é (it is): É uma hora, "it is one o'clock." For every other hour, from two through twelve, the hour is plural (two hours, three hours, and so on), so you use são (they are): São duas horas, São três horas, São dez horas. That is the entire rule. One takes é; two and above take são.

Notice something about the number for one: it is uma, not um. That is because hora is a feminine noun, so the number one agrees with it in the feminine form. The same happens with two: it is duas horas, not dois horas, because duas is the feminine of two. Only one and two change for gender in Portuguese, so from three onward the numbers stay the same regardless: três horas, quatro horas, and so on. This is a small detail that native ears catch instantly, so it is worth getting uma and duas right from the start.

You can also drop the word horas once context is clear, exactly as English speakers say "it's three" instead of "it's three o'clock." So São três is a perfectly natural answer to que horas são? The word horas tends to stay in when you are being precise or formal and drops out in quick, casual exchanges.

The numbers you need, 1 to 59

You cannot tell time without numbers, so here is the set that covers the clock. For the hours you only need one through twelve, and for the minutes you need one through fifty-nine. If you want a deeper dive into counting itself, our full breakdown pairs well with this, but for the clock the tables below are enough.

First, the hours. Remember that one and two take feminine forms because hora is feminine:

Now the minutes. You already know one through twelve from the hours. The rest follow the regular counting pattern, and the only spots worth memorizing carefully are the teens and the tens (twenty, thirty, forty, fifty), because everything in between is just a tens word plus e plus a units word. So twenty-three minutes is vinte e três, literally "twenty and three."

One note on spelling that saves confusion. In Brazil sixteen, seventeen, and nineteen are written dezesseis, dezessete, and dezenove, while in Portugal you will see dezasseis, dezassete, and dezanove. They sound close and mean the same thing, so do not let the small difference throw you. Fourteen is catorze in both, sometimes written quatorze in Brazil.

Adding minutes: e, para, and meia

With the hours and numbers in place, adding minutes is mostly about two little words: e and para. They mirror the English "past" and "to," but the structure is a bit different, so let us take them one at a time.

Minutes past the hour: e

For the first half of the hour, roughly one to thirty minutes past, you name the hour, add e (and), then name the minutes. So "ten past two" is duas e dez, literally "two and ten." "Quarter past three" using the full minutes is três e quinze, "three and fifteen." "Twenty-five past nine" is nove e vinte e cinco. Notice you keep the verb agreement from before: São duas e dez, É uma e vinte. The e pattern is the workhorse, and for many everyday conversations, especially in Brazil, people use it for the whole hour, saying três e quarenta e cinco (three forty-five) rather than switching to the "to" construction.

Minutes to the hour: para

For the second half of the hour, when it is closer to say how many minutes remain until the next hour, Portuguese uses para (to). The structure is "X minutes para the next hour." So "twenty to four" is vinte para as quatro, literally "twenty to the four." "Ten to eight" is dez para as oito. "Five to one" is cinco para a uma (note a uma, singular, because one o'clock is singular). You will also hear the fuller form faltam vinte para as quatro, literally "twenty are missing until four," which is common and completely natural. In European Portuguese, an alternative to para is menos (less): as quatro menos vinte, "four minus twenty," which mirrors Spanish and is heard more in Portugal than in Brazil.

Half past: meia

"Half past" has its own word: meia, which is short for meia hora, "half an hour." So "half past two" is duas e meia, literally "two and a half." Meia is feminine because hora is feminine, which is why it is meia and not meio. You can always say the full thirty instead, duas e trinta, and it means exactly the same thing, but meia is more common and more natural in speech. Do watch the overlap with meia-noite (midnight): the same word, different job. Context makes it clear which is meant.

Quarter past, half past, quarter to

Quarters deserve their own moment because this is a real difference between Brazil and Portugal, and knowing both keeps you from being confused. In English we say "quarter past" and "quarter to." Portuguese can do the same with the word um quarto (a quarter), but the two regions lean different ways.

In Brazil, the most common thing by far is simply to say the fifteen minutes in full. "Quarter past six" is usually seis e quinze, and "quarter to seven" is usually quinze para as sete. Brazilians rarely reach for um quarto in casual speech, so if you are learning Brazilian Portuguese you can safely stick with the plain minutes and always be understood.

In Portugal, um quarto is much more alive. "Quarter past six" can be seis e um quarto (six and a quarter), and "quarter to seven" can be um quarto para as sete (a quarter to seven) or as sete menos um quarto (seven minus a quarter). All of these are correct and common in European Portuguese. So the safe strategy is to produce quarters with the plain minutes, e quinze and quinze para, which works everywhere, while recognizing um quarto when a Portuguese speaker uses it.

AM and PM: manhã, tarde, noite, madrugada

Portuguese does not use AM and PM in everyday speech. Instead, when it is not obvious from context, you tack a period of the day onto the end of the time. There are four of these, and they map roughly to slices of the twenty-four-hour day:

• da madrugada the small hours, roughly 1 a.m. to 5 a.m., the deep-night to pre-dawn window. So três da madrugada is three in the morning, in the middle of the night.
• da manhã the morning, roughly 6 a.m. to 11 a.m. or noon. So nove da manhã is nine in the morning.
• da tarde the afternoon, roughly noon or 1 p.m. to about 6 or 7 p.m. So três da tarde is three in the afternoon.
• da noite the evening and night, roughly 7 p.m. onward until you cross into madrugada. So oito da noite is eight at night.

The word da here is a contraction of de (of) plus a (the), so da manhã literally means "of the morning." You use these whenever an hour would otherwise be ambiguous. If someone says são sete horas, it could be seven in the morning or seven at night, so you clarify with são sete da manhã or são sete da noite. When the context already makes it obvious, you can leave the period off entirely.

The boundaries between these are fuzzy and social rather than strict clock lines, exactly as "evening" and "night" blur in English. Nobody will correct you for calling 6 p.m. da tarde or da noite, because both feel reasonable at dusk. The one that surprises learners most is madrugada, because English has no single common word for "the middle of the night that is technically morning." If a Brazilian says they got home às três da madrugada, they mean three in the deep of the night, and the word carries a faint flavor of "very late" or "very early" that English needs a whole phrase to capture.

Noon and midnight: meio-dia and meia-noite

Two special times get their own names instead of a number, just as English has "noon" and "midnight." They are meio-dia (midday, literally "half day") and meia-noite (midnight, literally "half night"). Both are singular, which means, importantly, they take é and not são: É meio-dia (it is noon) and É meia-noite (it is midnight). This is the second and third of the three singular cases you met earlier, alongside one o'clock.

Adding minutes to these works just like any other hour. "Half past noon," that is 12:30 in the day, is meio-dia e meia. "Quarter past midnight" is meia-noite e quinze. "Ten to noon" is dez para o meio-dia. Notice that meio-dia is masculine (so para o meio-dia) while meia-noite is feminine (so para a meia-noite), which follows the gender of dia (day, masculine) and noite (night, feminine).

There is a fun wrinkle with the half hour that native speakers actually debate. "Half past noon" is often said meio-dia e meia, but some people say meio-dia e meio reasoning that the half refers to dia. The traditional and widely taught form is meia, because it is standing in for meia hora (half an hour), which is feminine. You will hear both in the wild, so recognize either and produce meio-dia e meia to be safe.

The 24-hour clock and official time

For anything official or written, Portuguese overwhelmingly uses the 24-hour clock: transport timetables, television schedules, cinema listings, business hours, and appointments all lean on it. So a train might leave às quinze horas e trinta (at 15:30) and a shop might close às vinte e uma horas (at 21:00). In writing you will see it as 15h30 or 15:30, with the h standing for horas.

To read the 24-hour clock aloud, you say the hour number followed by horas, then the minutes. So 14:00 is catorze horas, 18:45 is dezoito horas e quarenta e cinco, and 20:15 is vinte horas e quinze. The verb stays são for these because every hour above one is plural. This form sounds more formal and precise, which is exactly why it belongs to schedules and announcements rather than a casual "what time is it" on the street.

In daily conversation, though, people switch back to the twelve-hour feel with periods of the day. Nobody meeting a friend says vamos às vinte horas; they say vamos às oito da noite (let us go at eight at night). So the practical rule is this: understand and read the 24-hour clock for anything written or official, but speak in the twelve-hour style with da manhã, da tarde, and da noite for casual plans. Both live side by side, and fluent speakers move between them without thinking.

Saying "at" a time: à and às

Telling the current time is only half the job. The other half is saying when something happens, which in English uses "at": "at three o'clock," "at noon." Portuguese uses the preposition a for this, and it combines with the article to become one of two forms.

For plural hours, two and above, you use às (a contraction of a plus as): às duas (at two), às sete (at seven), às dez e meia (at half past ten). For one o'clock, which is singular, you use à (a contraction of a plus a): à uma (at one), à uma e quinze (at quarter past one). And for the two named times you use ao and à: ao meio-dia (at noon, masculine) and à meia-noite (at midnight, feminine).

This is the direct answer to the question A que horas? you met earlier. Someone asks A que horas comeca a reunião? (at what time does the meeting start?), and you answer Às nove da manhã (at nine in the morning). Notice the accent mark on às and à: that grave accent signals the contraction and is why the word is pronounced with a slightly more open "a" sound. Getting às right is what makes appointments, invitations, and plans sound natural rather than word-for-word translated.

Worked examples, hour by hour

Rules stick better once you see them applied to real clock times, so here is a run of worked examples. For each, the literal breakdown shows you exactly how the parts fit, so you can build any other time the same way. Read each one out loud as you go, because saying them is what moves them from something you understand to something you can produce.

On the hour

• 1:00 É uma hora. Singular, so é, and uma in the feminine.
• 4:00 São quatro horas. Plural, so são.
• 12:00 midday É meio-dia. A named, singular time.
• 12:00 night É meia-noite. The other named, singular time.

Minutes past

• 2:05 São duas e cinco. Two and five.
• 7:10 São sete e dez. Seven and ten.
• 9:20 São nove e vinte. Nine and twenty.
• 3:30 São três e meia. Half past three, using meia.
• 1:15 É uma e quinze. Note é because the hour is one.

Minutes to

• 3:40 São vinte para as quatro. Twenty to four.
• 7:50 São dez para as oito. Ten to eight.
• 12:55 É uma menos cinco (Portugal) or São cinco para a uma (both). Five to one, and note a uma, singular.
• 5:45 São quinze para as seis (Brazil) or É um quarto para as seis (Portugal). Quarter to six.

With periods of the day

• 8:00 a.m. São oito da manhã. Eight in the morning.
• 2:30 p.m. São duas e meia da tarde. Half past two in the afternoon.
• 9:15 p.m. São nove e quinze da noite. Quarter past nine at night.
• 4:00 a.m. São quatro da madrugada. Four in the deep of the night.

Saying when something happens

• The film starts at 8 p.m. O filme começa às oito da noite.
• I wake up at 6:30. Eu acordo às seis e meia.
• Lunch is at noon. O almoço é ao meio-dia.
• The train leaves at 1:15. O trem parte à uma e quinze.

If you read every one of those aloud, you have just rehearsed every pattern in this guide. The best next step is to close the page and try to say the current time, then a time an hour from now, then the time you woke up, all without looking. That small act of retrieval is what our guide on how to memorize vocabulary calls the real work, and it beats re-reading every time.

Full reference table

Here is everything in one place to bookmark. This table walks through a full clock with the natural spoken form for each time, so you can scan it, cover the right column, and quiz yourself. Where Brazil and Portugal differ, the most widely understood form is given first.

A handful of useful phrases round out the picture and come up constantly once you start talking about time in real life:

• em ponto: "on the dot," sharp. São três em ponto is "it is three o'clock sharp."
• mais ou menos: "more or less," roughly. São mais ou menos duas is "it is about two."
• agora: "now." Que horas são agora?
• atrasado / adiantado: "late" / "early" (or "fast" for a clock). Meu relógio está adiantado means "my watch is fast."
• relógio: "clock" or "watch," the object itself.
• de manhã / à tarde / à noite: "in the morning / afternoon / evening" as general time frames, distinct from the da forms tied to a specific hour.

Practicing time out loud with SPAIKING

Everything above is knowable in an afternoon. Being able to produce the right form the instant someone asks que horas são? is a different skill, and it only comes from saying these times out loud, over and over, until the choice between é and são stops being a decision and becomes a reflex. Reading a reference table builds recognition. Speaking builds the reflex.

This is exactly the gap SPAIKING is built to close. After you have studied the patterns here, you open SPAIKING and have a real spoken conversation with an AI partner that asks you the time, makes plans that force you to say às oito da noite, and catches the moment you say são uma hora when it should be é uma hora. Because the AI answers back, you get the two-way pressure that a flashcard can never give you: you have to understand a reply and respond on the spot, which is where time telling actually lives in real life.

The pieces that make it fit a time-learning habit:

• It asks and answers. You practice both sides, hearing a time and producing one, instead of only reading times off a page.
• It corrects the agreement. The é versus são slip and the uma versus um slip are exactly the mistakes a live partner catches and a silent drill hides.
• It is always available. No scheduling a tutor. Study the table, then say a dozen times out loud to the AI while it is fresh.
• It builds real scenarios. Making dinner plans, catching a train, asking when a shop opens, the situations where you actually need the time in Portuguese.

Pair a short study of this guide with a few minutes of speaking most days, and telling time stops being a chore you look up and becomes something you just do. If you want to build the surrounding habit, our guide on how to learn a language fast and the deeper method behind spaced review in what spaced repetition is both slot neatly around this. You can start turning these patterns into real conversation on the pricing page.