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German: Telling time | ||
Tags: Number System | German | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages |  | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4087 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes  Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 1 of 13 22 February 2014 at 5:41am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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dreiviertel zwei is 1:45.
What is the logic of having zwei in there rather than eins? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bakunin Diglot Senior Member Switzerland outerkhmer.blogspot. Joined 5135 days ago 531 posts - 1126 votes Speaks: German*, Thai Studies: Khmer | Message 2 of 13 22 February 2014 at 8:04am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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1:15 - viertel Zwei
1:30 - halb Zwei 1:45 - dreiviertel Zwei 2:00 - um Zwei alternatively 1:15 - viertel nach Eins 1:30 - halb Zwei 1:45 - viertel vor Zwei 2:00 - um Zwei 2:15 - viertel nach Zwei ... and there are more regional variants. I personal use the second system, my parents use the first one. To me, both systems are logical. The first bases telling time on the hour which has started and is in the process of being completed. The second is more centered around the full hour (viertel vor, viertel nach), which makes sense as well. A system based on the last completed hour (as in one fifteen, one thirty, one forty-five) would be logical as well, but I don't think it is used in German. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5325 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 3 of 13 22 February 2014 at 8:13am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Because it's 3/4 of 2 (1.75). The same goes for "halb zwei" (1.5), which is 1:30. BTW, there are regional differences when it comes to telling time. If you don't like "dreiviertel zwei" you can also say "viertel vor zwei," if that makes more sense to you. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4087 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 4 of 13 22 February 2014 at 8:35am | IP Logged | ||||||||
Oh yeah, I'll stick to viertel vor Zwei; its just that I (and other students) had learned halb Zwei in class earlier, and we thought "subtract halb from Zwei", well thats weird cuz subtraction is harder than addition. Today I read in another book about the dreiviertel zwei construct, and I was like ?????? If I subtract dreiviertel from Zwei I get 1:15 not 1:45. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5771 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 5 of 13 22 February 2014 at 5:34pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I actually thought the same when I moved to an area where people said that! I grew up with viertel nach, halb, viertel vor, and I always thought, *either* it should be that you start from the last full hour and add a viertel, halb, drieviertel, *or* you should start from the next full hour and subtract a dreiviertel, halb, viertel.
And, Doitsujin, you could say it's "3/4 of the last hour before 2" and reach 1:45, but that's so complicated. (And 3/4 *of* 2 is still 1.5, and that would be 1:30) I mean when simply telling the time it may not make much of a difference, but when you are under durress and have to calculate 9:35 hours from 3:45 pm onwards ... more mistakes are made. Like more kids end up reversing the order of tens and ones in German than, for example, in English. Edited by Bao on 22 February 2014 at 5:35pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Doitsujin Diglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5325 days ago 1256 posts - 2363 votes Speaks: German*, English | Message 6 of 13 22 February 2014 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
You are of course correct, what I should have written is 1 and 3/4 of an hour. As you might have guessed, IMHO, "drei viertel zwei" is a perfectly logical way of telling time. :-)
I usually simply spell out the minutes. E.g., 9:35 = neun Uhr fünf-und-dreißig.
I haven't noticed this, but then again, I rarely ask children for the time. :-) One a related note, German mathematician Lothar Gerritzen has suggested to count numbers as in English (and many other languages). 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Bao Diglot Senior Member Germany tinyurl.com/pe4kqe5 Joined 5771 days ago 2256 posts - 4046 votes Speaks: German*, English Studies: French, Spanish, Japanese, Mandarin | Message 7 of 13 22 February 2014 at 6:06pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Drat, that was not elaborate enough, I meant that German children often reverse tens and ones in writing, not when telling time, just like what your link says. But telling time this way makes it harder to transfer that information into something you can calculate time with.
I actually say 'viertel nach/viertel vor' when I mean 'around that time, but closer to the quarter than the half/full hour' and say the exact time when that information is needed - if, for example, a bus leaves 9:25 and I want to meet up with my friend at 9:15, I want to be there at that time and I want them to be there at that time, so I might say: neun Uhr fünfzehn, and if I just want to meet up with them in maybe half an hour, I'd say viertel nach neun, and it would be perfectly alright of somebody arrived five or even ten minutes late. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4087 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 8 of 13 22 February 2014 at 6:43pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
:D :D In class, I was called upon to write telephone numbers on the whiteboard in a listening exercise. So when sechsundzwanzig drieundviertzig would be spoken, I would write the digits as 6..2...3...4, in the right order by keeping on switching the directions, left right, left right; I didnt want to tax my brain by keeping the sechs and the drei in memory. Hear it, write it, forget it is my brains motto. The teacher found it amusing. On a related note (dont know if this is true): http://www.itchyfeetcomic.com/2013/05/four-twenties-and-thir teen.html Edited by Gemuse on 22 February 2014 at 6:54pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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