--- title: Quarter past, quarter to, and how people really say the time — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Quarter past, quarter to, and how people really say the time», a lesson of the world course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: An hour is like a pizza cut into 4 equal slices: each slice is a quarter of an hour, 15 minutes, because 60 ÷ 4 --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/) / Quarter past, quarter to, and how peop… # Quarter past, quarter to, and how people really say the time Lesson 102 of the world course of Mova's primary school: 22 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/0/) — An hour is like a pizza cut into 4 equal slices: each slice is a quarter of an hour, 15 minutes, because 60 ÷ 4 = 15. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/1/) — "Past" means after the hour and "to" means before the next one. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/2/) — Quarter past eight is 8:15; quarter to seven is 6:45, fifteen minutes before seven, not after it. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/3/) — Once the long hand passes half past, people switch to "to": twenty to ten is 9:40. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/4/) — The same clock is said differently in different places. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/5/) — In parts of the USA "quarter of five" or "quarter till five" means 4:45 and "ten after five" means 5:10. - [6](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/6/) — In Britain "half three" means 3:30, but German "halb drei" means half way to three, 2:30. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/7/) — Same-sounding words, an hour apart! - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/8/) — Some time words are fuzzy or old: a Scottish gran's "the back of nine" means just after nine, and an old book's "five and twenty past four" is 4:25, because old English could say the small number first. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/9/) — When someone uses a time word you don't know, ask for the digital time: being right matters more than sounding clever. - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/10/) — A quarter of an hour is 15 minutes, because 60 ÷ 4 = 15. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/11/) — Quarter past means 15 minutes after the hour, so quarter past eight is 8:15. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/12/) — Quarter to means 15 minutes before the hour, so quarter to seven is 6:45. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/13/) — In parts of the USA "quarter of" or "quarter till" means quarter to, so "quarter of five" is 4:45. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/14/) — Americans often say "after" where British people say "past": ten after five and ten past five are both 5:10. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/15/) — In German "halb drei" means half way to three, 2:30, while in British English "half three" means 3:30. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/16/) — In Australia "arvo" means afternoon, so "half three this arvo" is 3:30 in the afternoon. - [18](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/18/) — To turn "twenty to ten" into digital, take 20 from 60 to get 40 and use the hour before: 9:40. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/19/) — In parts of northern England and Scotland "dinner" can mean the midday meal and "tea" the evening meal, so "dinner's at half twelve" means 12:30 in the day. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/20/) — In Scotland "the back of nine" means a little after nine, around 9:05 or 9:10, never nearly ten. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/21/) — 7:45 can be said "seven forty-five" or "quarter to eight"; "three quarters past seven" is also true, because 3 × 15 = 45, but almost nobody says it. - [22](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/102-quarter-past-quarter-to-saying-the-time/22/) — Words people use: "mam" means mum (Ireland, the north of England, Wales), "faffing" means wasting time on little things, "muppet" means a silly person, "howay" means "come on" (north-east England) and "yinz" means "you all" (Pittsburgh, USA). - ← previous: [Reading the clock: hours, minutes and the two hands](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/101-reading-the-clock-hours-minutes-hands/) - next →: [Morning, afternoon and the 24-hour clock](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/103-morning-afternoon-24-hour-clock/) - ↑ back to [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/)