Bài 9: Asking time & date – Hỏi giờ & ngày

Today, I’m going to tell you about the ways of asking time & day in Vietnamese. But first, make sure that you’ve read and gotten the lesson 4, expressing about Vietnamese numbers.

Okay, let’s continue.

1/ Asking & telling time: There are two common sentences Vietnamese uses to ask time:

- Bây giờ là mấy giờ?

- Bây giờ mấy giờ rồi? or simpler “mấy giờ rồi?”

For explaination:
“bây giờ” means “now”.
“mấy” means “what” . In some other situations, it means “how many” or used to express a large number of something.
“giờ” means “hour”.
“rồi” means “already”.

Note: sometime you can hear some prefix words, such as “cho hỏi”, “vui lòng cho hỏi”, “làm ơn cho hỏi”. It means “please allow me to ask”, used to be more polite

That’s the ways to ask time … to tell time there are two ways

* Informal way: very easy, you just need tell the numbers. For examples:
- 2h00 : hai giờ (two hour)
- 3h15 : ba giờ mười lăm (three hour fifteen)
- 4h40 : bốn giờ bốn mươi (four hour forty)

* Formal way: This is the way a child learn to tell time. It is also used very common. There are 4 cases:

- The minute equals 0: in English, we call “[hour] o’clock” but in Vietnamese, we call “[hour] giờ đúng”. “Đúng” means “correct”, not more than and not less than.
For example: 2h00 = hai giờ đúng (two hour correct)

- The minute from 1 to 29: in English we call “[minute] past [hour]” but in Vietnamesse we call “[hour] giờ [minute] phút”.
For example: 4h17 = bốn giờ mười bảy phút (four hour seventeen minute)

- The minute equals 30: in English we call “half past [hour]“, but in Vietnamese we call “[hour] giờ rưỡi”.
For example: 3h30 = ba giờ rưỡi (three hour half)

- The minute more than 30 (from 31 to 59): in English we call “[60-minute] to [hour+1]“, but in Vietnamese we call “[hour+1] giờ kém [60-minute] phút”.
For example: 7h45 = tám giờ kém mười lăm phút (eight hour less fifteen minute).

Note: sometime we can omit the word “phút” (means “minute”) at the end for short.

To add more information about AM / PM, we add the word such as “sáng” for morning, “trưa” for afternoon, “chiều” for evening, “tối” for night at the end of sentence. Examples: 7h30 pm = 7 giờ ruỡi tối; 12h pm = 12 giờ trưa

2/ Asking & telling day in week: In Vietnam, we call the day in week is “thứ”. So, to ask about “thứ” we say: [date] là thứ mấy?

For examples:
Hôm nay là thứ mấy?
Today is day what?

Ngày mai là thứ mấy?
Tomorrow is day what?

Ngày 7 tháng 3 là thứ mấy?
date 7 month 3 is day what?

to reply the question, we say “[date] là [day in week]“

For examples:
Hôm nay là thứ 2
Today is Monday

Ngày mai là thứ 3
Tomorrow is Thursday

7/3 là Chủ Nhật
7/3 is Sunday

Look at back the lesson 4 to know more about “thứ”

3/ Asking & telling date:

to ask what [date] is today, we say “Hôm nay là ngày mấy?” or sometime you can hear “Hôm nay là ngày bao nhiêu?” means “Today is date what?”

to reply, we say “Hôm nay là ngày [date]“. For example: hôm nay là ngày 7/3

Note:
- You can replace the word “Hôm nay (today)” to “Hôm qua (yesterday)” or “Ngày mai (tomorrow)” depend on what date you want to ask
- Sometime you can hear such as “Thứ 2 là ngày mấy?” means “Monday is date what?” to ask about date of day.

That’s it for today. So “Hôm nay là ngày mấy? & Bây giờ là mấy giờ?”