Time in Vietnamese: How to Tell and Ask the Time

How time in Vietnamese works

Learning time in Vietnamese is easier than most beginners fear, because the language builds clock times out of just a few pieces that you slot together in a fixed order. There are no irregular clock words to memorize the way English throws "quarter" and "noon" and "midnight" at you. You take a number, add the word for hour, add the minutes if you need them, and then, if it matters, add the part of the day. That is the whole engine.

The single most important word is giờ, which means both "hour" and "o'clock." You place the number in front of it. So bảy giờ is "seven o'clock," một giờ is "one o'clock," and mười hai giờ is "twelve o'clock." The order is number first, then giờ, which is the opposite of nothing you already know, because English does the same: "seven" then "o'clock."

To add minutes, you say the hour, then the number of minutes, then optionally the word phút, which means "minute." So bảy giờ mười lăm phút is "seven fifteen," literally "seven hours fifteen minutes." In fast speech people often drop the word phút and just say bảy giờ mười lăm, and everyone understands. Both are correct.

Finally, because Vietnamese has no a.m. and p.m., you tell people whether it is morning or evening by naming the part of the day after the time: sáng for morning, chiều for afternoon, tối for evening, and so on. So "three in the afternoon" is ba giờ chiều, and "seven in the evening" is bảy giờ tối. That is the entire structure of time in Vietnamese, and the rest of this guide simply fills in the details and gives you plenty of examples to copy.

Vietnamese numbers you need for time

You cannot say the time without numbers, so start here. For hours you only need one through twelve, and for minutes you need up to fifty nine. The good news is Vietnamese numbers are highly regular, so once you have one through ten and understand how the tens are built, you can produce every minute value on the clock. If you want a fuller tour of counting, our companion piece on the Vietnamese alphabet pairs well with this for getting the sounds right.

Here are the numbers one through twelve, which is all you need for the hour hand.

For minutes you need the tens as well, and this is where a couple of small sound changes appear that trip up beginners. When you build numbers above twenty, the word for ten, mười, changes to mươi (with a different tone), and two other shifts happen inside compound numbers. Here are the ones that matter for the clock:

• năm becomes lăm. Five on its own is năm, but at the end of a compound it becomes lăm. So fifteen is mười lăm, twenty five is hai mươi lăm, and forty five is bốn mươi lăm.
• một becomes mốt. One on its own is một, but after a ten it shifts tone to mốt. So twenty one is hai mươi mốt and thirty one is ba mươi mốt.
• mười becomes mươi. Inside the tens above twenty, ten shifts to mươi. So twenty is hai mươi, thirty is ba mươi, and forty is bốn mươi.

These three changes look fiddly written out, but they become automatic quickly because they follow the same logic every time. The key minute values you will use most, fifteen, thirty, and forty five, are mười lăm, ba mươi, and bốn mươi lăm. Learn those three by heart and you have covered the quarter hours before you even reach the shortcut words.

Giờ, phút, giây: the words that build a clock

Three little words carry almost all of Vietnamese clock time, and they map neatly onto English. Giờ is "hour" and "o'clock." Phút is "minute." Giây is "second." You will use giờ constantly, phút often, and giây only rarely, but it is worth knowing all three so nothing surprises you.

Notice that giờ does double duty. It is both the marker of clock time, as in ba giờ (three o'clock), and the unit of duration, as in ba giờ đồng hồ (three hours long). The phrase đồng hồ means "clock" or "watch," and adding it makes clear you mean a span of three hours rather than the time three o'clock. In everyday clock telling you almost never need đồng hồ, but it is handy when you talk about how long something takes.

Here is how the three units stack up in a single expression. Suppose a stopwatch reads two hours, fifteen minutes, and thirty seconds. In full that is hai giờ mười lăm phút ba mươi giây. You will rarely say all three in casual talk, but seeing them together shows the pattern clearly: each number sits in front of its unit, largest unit first, exactly as English does it.

Two more words round out the core vocabulary and appear all the time in real speech:

• đúng means "exactly" or "sharp," and it goes before the time. So đúng bảy giờ is "exactly seven o'clock" or "seven o'clock sharp."
• khoảng means "about" or "around," and it also goes before the time. So khoảng bảy giờ is "around seven o'clock." This one is a lifesaver when you are not sure of the exact time.

With giờ, phút, giây, đúng, and khoảng in your pocket, you already have the raw material for most sentences about time. Everything else is a matter of putting them in order and adding the part of the day, which we get to shortly.

Asking the time: "Mấy giờ rồi?"

Before you can tell the time, you often need to ask it, and Vietnamese has one phrase you will use far more than any other. To ask "what time is it?" you say Mấy giờ rồi? Word for word this is "how many hours already?" The word mấy means "how many," giờ is our familiar "hour," and rồi means "already," which gives the question its natural, current feel. It is casual, friendly, and correct in almost any everyday setting.

If you want something a touch more complete or polite, you can say Bây giờ là mấy giờ?, which means "what time is it now?" Here bây giờ means "now," là is "is," and the rest repeats the question. Both versions get you the same answer, so if you only memorize one phrase, make it Mấy giờ rồi?

To be polite to someone older or in a formal setting, add a politeness particle at the start or end. For example, Xin lỗi, bây giờ là mấy giờ ạ? means "excuse me, what time is it now?" The word xin lỗi means "excuse me" or "sorry," and the small word ạ at the end softens the question and makes it courteous. Vietnamese leans heavily on these little politeness words, and dropping one into a question about the time is an easy way to sound respectful.

There is a second, different kind of time question: not "what time is it" but "at what time does something happen." For that you use lúc mấy giờ, which means "at what time." The word lúc means "at" in the sense of a moment. So:

• Bạn đi làm lúc mấy giờ? means "what time do you go to work?"
• Phim bắt đầu lúc mấy giờ? means "what time does the film start?"
• Cửa hàng mở cửa lúc mấy giờ? means "what time does the shop open?"

Notice the pattern: the thing that happens comes first, then lúc mấy giờ at the end. And to answer, you just replace mấy with the actual hour: lúc tám giờ means "at eight o'clock." Keep these two question types straight, mấy giờ rồi for the current time and lúc mấy giờ for the time of an event, and you can handle almost any conversation about scheduling.

Telling time on and past the hour

Now the core skill: giving the time when someone asks. On the hour, it could not be simpler. You say the number, then giờ. That is the entire sentence.

To say it is exactly on the hour, drop đúng in front: đúng tám giờ is "eight o'clock sharp." This is common when you set a meeting time and want to stress punctuality.

For minutes past the hour, you say the hour, then the minutes, then optionally phút. The word order matches the clock reading left to right, so it feels natural fast. Here are the common minute values:

For very small minute values like five past, some speakers add phút to avoid confusion, since a bare bảy giờ năm could momentarily sound like it is heading toward "five." Saying bảy giờ năm phút removes any doubt. As a rule of thumb: include phút for single digit minutes, feel free to drop it for the rest. Either way you will be understood, so do not let this slow you down.

Rưỡi and kém: half past and "to" the hour

Two shortcut words make Vietnamese time telling faster and more natural, and native speakers use them constantly, so you should too. They are rưỡi for "half past" and kém for "to" the hour.

Rưỡi: half past

Rưỡi means "and a half," and it comes right after the hour to mean thirty minutes past. So bảy giờ rưỡi is "half past seven," or 7:30. You can always say the full form bảy giờ ba mươi (seven thirty) instead, and it is perfectly correct, but rưỡi is shorter and sounds more like a native speaker. A few examples:

Remember that rưỡi always means half of the current hour, so it only ever equals thirty minutes. There is no "quarter" shortcut word the way English has; for fifteen and forty five you simply say the minute numbers, mười lăm and bốn mươi lăm, or use kém as we will see next.

Kém: minutes to the hour

Kém means "less" or "to," and it lets you count backward from the coming hour, exactly like English "ten to nine." The pattern is: the next hour, then kém, then how many minutes short of it you are. So for 8:50, which is ten minutes before nine, you say chín giờ kém mười, literally "nine hours less ten." Some examples:

Vietnamese speakers tend to reach for kém for the last ten or fifteen minutes before an hour, because saying "five to eight" is quicker and clearer than "seven fifty five." But you always have the choice. If kém feels awkward at first, just say the full minute count; nobody will misunderstand bảy giờ năm mươi lăm. Add kém to your active speech once the basics feel comfortable, and you will sound noticeably more fluent.

Buổi sáng, chiều, tối: parts of the day

Because Vietnamese does not use a.m. and p.m., you show whether a time is morning or evening by adding the part of the day after it. The general word for a part of the day is buổi, and the main divisions are these:

When you attach these to a time, you drop the word buổi and keep just the part of day. So "six in the morning" is sáu giờ sáng, "three in the afternoon" is ba giờ chiều, and "nine in the evening" is chín giờ tối. The part of the day comes at the very end, after any minutes. So 6:30 p.m. is sáu giờ rưỡi chiều or, since it is right on the boundary, sáu giờ rưỡi tối, and both are fine.

A few boundary times deserve their own words:

• giữa trưa means "midday" or right around noon, twelve o'clock in the daytime.
• nửa đêm means "midnight," twelve o'clock at night. So mười hai giờ đêm or nửa đêm both point at 12 a.m.
• Because trưa covers late morning into early afternoon, a time like 12:30 p.m. is naturally mười hai giờ rưỡi trưa.

The exact boundaries between sáng, trưa, chiều, and tối are not rigid, and different speakers draw them slightly differently, much like "evening" and "night" blur in English. Do not stress about the exact minute where afternoon becomes evening. What matters is that the listener knows roughly when you mean, and any reasonable choice does that. When in doubt for a late afternoon time, chiều is safe; for anything after dark, tối.

The 24 hour clock in Vietnamese

Alongside the everyday 12 hour clock, Vietnamese uses the 24 hour clock in formal and written contexts: train and bus timetables, flight schedules, television listings, official notices, and business hours. If you travel in Vietnam or read any schedule, you will meet it, so it is worth knowing even though you will speak the 12 hour version far more.

The 24 hour clock is actually simpler to say, because there are no parts of the day to add. You just say the hour number, up to twenty three, then giờ, then the minutes. The hour numbers thirteen through twenty three are built exactly like the other tens you already know: thirteen is mười ba, fourteen is mười bốn, twenty is hai mươi, twenty one is hai mươi mốt, and so on.

To convert a 24 hour time to the spoken 12 hour form, subtract twelve from any hour past twelve and add the right part of the day. So 15:00 becomes fifteen minus twelve, that is three, plus afternoon, giving ba giờ chiều. It is the same mental step you already do in English when a schedule says 18:00 and you think "six in the evening." In casual conversation, always prefer the 12 hour form with a part of day; save the raw 24 hour numbers for when you are reading them off a timetable.

Worked examples and a full clock table

Let us put every piece together with worked examples, thinking through them the way you would in your head before you speak. Then a full reference table you can come back to.

Example 1: it is 7:15 in the morning. Start with the hour: seven is bảy, so bảy giờ. Add the minutes: fifteen is mười lăm. Add the part of day: morning is sáng. Put it together: bảy giờ mười lăm sáng. Done.

Example 2: it is 2:30 in the afternoon. Hour: two is hai, so hai giờ. Half past uses the shortcut rưỡi. Afternoon is chiều. Result: hai giờ rưỡi chiều. Or in full, hai giờ ba mươi chiều.

Example 3: it is 8:50 at night. This is ten minutes to nine, so kém is natural. The coming hour is nine, chín giờ, then kém mười for ten to, then tối for evening. Result: chín giờ kém mười tối. In full without kém: tám giờ năm mươi tối.

Example 4: the shop opens at exactly 9 a.m. Use đúng for "exactly." Nine is chín, morning is sáng. If you are stating the opening time, you can say Cửa hàng mở cửa lúc đúng chín giờ sáng, meaning "the shop opens at exactly nine in the morning."

Example 5: my train leaves at 18:20. On a timetable this is written in 24 hour form. Spoken formally: mười tám giờ hai mươi. Spoken casually you would convert: eighteen minus twelve is six, in the evening, plus twenty minutes, giving sáu giờ hai mươi tối, or with the marker chiều if you still think of six as late afternoon.

Here is a full reference table covering a normal day, hour by hour and at the common quarter and half points. Speak each one aloud as you scan it.

If you can produce any row of that table out loud from just the clock reading, you have essentially mastered telling time in Vietnamese. The way to get there is not to reread the table but to test yourself: cover the right column, look at a time, and say it before you check, which is the same active recall that powers real memory. We cover that habit in depth in our guide on how to memorize vocabulary.

Schedules and "at what time"

Most real conversations about time are about scheduling: when you will meet, when something opens, when a bus leaves. That means combining the times you have learned with the little words that pin them to events. You have already met the most important one, lúc, meaning "at" a point in time. A few more make your scheduling talk complete.

• lúc = at (a time). Gặp nhau lúc bảy giờ tối. = "Let's meet at seven in the evening."
• từ ... đến ... = from ... to ... Từ tám giờ đến mười giờ. = "From eight to ten o'clock."
• trước = before. Trước chín giờ. = "Before nine o'clock."
• sau = after. Sau ba giờ chiều. = "After three in the afternoon."
• khoảng = around. Khoảng sáu giờ rưỡi. = "Around half past six."

Now some full scheduling sentences you can adapt on the spot. Notice how the time phrases you built earlier slot straight into them:

• Bạn rảnh lúc mấy giờ? = "What time are you free?"
• Tôi rảnh lúc bảy giờ tối. = "I'm free at seven in the evening."
• Cửa hàng mở cửa từ tám giờ sáng đến mười giờ tối. = "The shop is open from eight in the morning to ten at night."
• Chuyến xe buýt tiếp theo lúc mấy giờ? = "What time is the next bus?"
• Hẹn gặp lúc đúng chín giờ nhé. = "Let's meet at exactly nine, okay?"

The pattern to internalize is that the time itself never changes shape; it only gets a small word in front to say how it relates to the event. Once you can build any time, adding lúc, trước, sau, and từ ... đến is a tiny extra step. This is where telling time stops being a drill and starts being real conversation, and it is exactly the kind of practical, high frequency language worth prioritizing, as we argue in our guide on how to learn a language fast.

Common mistakes with Vietnamese time

A handful of predictable slips catch nearly every learner. Knowing them in advance saves you weeks of quietly saying the time wrong.

1. Forgetting the năm to lăm change. Beginners say mười năm for fifteen when telling time, but at the end of a compound number, five is lăm, so it must be mười lăm. Same for twenty five, hai mươi lăm, and forty five, bốn mươi lăm. Drill these three until they feel wrong any other way.
2. Putting the part of day in the wrong place. The part of day goes at the very end, after the minutes: ba giờ mười lăm chiều, not ba chiều giờ mười lăm. Time first, then sáng or chiều or tối.
3. Misusing kém. With kém you name the coming hour, not the current one. 8:50 is chín giờ kém mười (nine less ten), not tám giờ kém mười. If in doubt, use the full minute count instead.
4. Confusing rưỡi with a specific minute. Rưỡi only ever means half past, that is thirty. It is not a general word for "something past." For other minutes, say the number.
5. Expecting a word for "quarter." There is no single word for quarter past or quarter to. Use mười lăm for fifteen past and kém mười lăm for fifteen to.
6. Mixing tones on giờ and giây. Giờ (hour) and giây (second) look and sound similar to a beginner but differ in vowel and tone. Say them carefully so "three hours" does not come out as "three seconds."
7. Overusing the 24 hour clock in speech. Reading hai mươi giờ off a timetable is fine, but saying it in casual conversation sounds stiff. Convert to tám giờ tối when you are just chatting.

The thread through all of these is that Vietnamese time is regular, so once you fix the sound changes and the word order, you rarely go wrong. The remaining challenge is not knowledge but speed: producing the right form instantly in a live conversation, which only comes from speaking, not reading. Building the habit of thinking directly in the language, rather than translating from English each time, is what finally makes it fast, and we cover that mindset in our guide on how to think in a new language. Feeding yourself plenty of real Vietnamese input helps too, which is the subject of our piece on what comprehensible input is.

How SPAIKING helps you say the time

Reading a guide like this teaches you the system. What it cannot do is give you the reps of saying "mấy giờ rồi" and "ba giờ rưỡi chiều" out loud, with the right tones, until they come without thinking. That gap between knowing the pattern and producing it live is exactly where most learners stall, and it is the gap SPAIKING is built to close.

SPAIKING is an AI speaking partner for Vietnamese and other languages. You talk to it out loud, it talks back, and it corrects your pronunciation and mistakes in real time. For telling time that is precisely the practice you need, because the only way to make the sound changes automatic, the năm to lăm shift, the kém counting, the part of day at the end, is to say them again and again in real sentences and get corrected on the spot. Here is how it fits into learning time specifically:

• It makes you produce, not just recognize. A table lets you nod along. SPAIKING asks you the time and waits for you to say it aloud, which is the retrieval that actually builds the skill.
• It corrects your tones in the moment. Your own ear forgives your own tone slips, so you keep making them. SPAIKING flags them right away, so "giờ" and "giây" stop blurring together.
• It runs real scheduling conversations. You can practice asking when a shop opens, agreeing to meet at a time, or reading a timetable aloud, all the high frequency uses of time, in a two way exchange a flashcard cannot give you.
• It is always available. No partner to schedule, no fear of looking silly. You can fumble "tám giờ kém năm" ten times at midnight and the AI just keeps going.

The plan that works is simple: read this guide once to get the system, then spend a few minutes a day saying times out loud with SPAIKING until they are reflexes. Within a week or two, someone asking Mấy giờ rồi? will get a smooth answer instead of a pause while you translate in your head. You can start on the pricing page and begin turning these patterns into real spoken Vietnamese today.