Welcome to lesson 12. In this lesson, we’ll be learning briefly about time. I say briefly, because we are just going to learn some basics about telling time. We’ll get into the more specific aspects in a later lesson.
| I. What time is it? |
There are two ways to ask the time in Russian. They are Сколько [сейчас] времени? and Который час?
| Сколько [сейчас] времени? What time is it? |
The word сколько means how much, how many, and it requires the genitive case. And as we saw, время declines irregularly – its genitive form is времени. Literally, we are asking how much time? Note that сейчас is optional in this phrase.
| Который час? What time is it? |
This isn’t as common, somewhat old-fashioned, but it’s used occasionally, making it a valid equivalent. The word который means which. Here, combined with час, it translates as which hour? We will learn all about который in a later lesson.
| To express it’s … o’clock, don’t say это, but rather сейчас. |
| Сейчас [один]час. [see below] | It’s one o’clock. [lit. now one hour] |
| Сейчас два часа. | It’s two o’clock. [lit. now two hours] |
| Сейчас три часа. | It’s three o’clock. [lit. now three hours] |
| Сейчас четыре часа. | It’s four o’clock. [lit. now four hours] |
| Сейчас пять часов. | It’s five o’clock. [lit. now five hours] |
| Сейчас шесть часов. | It’s six o’clock. [lit. now six hours] |
| Сейчас семь часов. | It’s seven o’clock. [lit. now seven hours] |
| Сейчас восемь часов. | It’s eight o’clock. [lit. now eight hours] |
| Сейчас девять часов. | It’s nine o’clock. [lit. now nine hours] |
| Сейчас десять часов. | It’s ten o’clock. [lit. now ten hours] |
| Сейчас одинадцать часов. | It’s eleven o’clock. [lit. now eleven hours] |
| Сейчас двенадцать часов. | It’s twelve o’clock. [lit. now twelve hours] |
| Сейчас тринадцать часов. | It’s thirteen o’clock. [lit. now thirteen hours] |
| Сейчас четырнадцать часов. | It’s fourteen o’clock. [lit. now fourteen hours] |
| Сейчас пятнадцать часов. | It’s fifteen o’clock. [lit. now fifteen hours] |
| Сейчас шестнадцать часов. | It’s sixteen o’clock. [lit. now sixteen hours] |
| Сейчас семнадцать часов. | It’s seventeen o’clock. [lit. now seventeen hours] |
| Сейчас восемнадцать часов. | It’s eighteen o’clock. [lit. now eighteen hours] |
| Сейчас девятнадцать часов. | It’s nineteen o’clock. [lit. now nineteen o’clock] |
| Сейчас двадцать часов. | It’s twenty o’clock. [lit. now twenty hours] |
| Сейчас двадцать один час. | It’s twenty-one o’clock. [lit. now twenty-one hours] |
| Сейчас двадцать два часа. | It’s twenty-two o’clock. [lit. now twenty-two hours] |
| Сейчас двадцать три часа. | It’s twenty-three o’clock. [lit. now twenty-three hours] |
| Сейчас двадцать четыре часа. | It’s twenty-four o’clock. [lit. now twenty-four hours] |
| For one o’clock, it’s common to just say час. |
Up until this lesson, we had only learned numbers 1-10. Now we know 11-24.
Let’s review the forms of час [hour]. Its form changes in the examples above. We learned in the previous lesson that certain numbers require certain cases. Fortunately, this noun declines regularly.
| nom. [1] | gen. sing. [2-4] | gen. pl. [5-20] |
| час | часа | часов |
In Russia, both the 12-hour and 24-hour clocks are used.
If the 24-hour clock is used, then there is no confusion concerning AM or PM, which doesn’t exist in Russian.
If you use the 12-hour clock, you might need to clarify. How do we do this? We need to use the genitive case to help us clarify. 🙂
We need to put the words утро [morning], день [day], вечер [evening] and ночь [night] all in the genitive, then add them into our sentence.
| refers to any time past 5 AM until noon | refers to any time past noon until 6 PM | refers to any time from 6 PM until midnight | refers to any time past midnight until 5 AM |
| утра | дня | вечера | ночи |
Some other useful words to know are:
| полдень [noon] m. | полночь [midnight] f. |
You can use them to refer to the time of day.
| Сейчас полдень. Я на работе. It’s noon. I’m at work. |
| Сейчас полночь. Я иду спать. It’s midnight. I’m going to sleep. |
| II. Expression at what time? |
We learned how to ask what time it is. Now we need to learn how to ask at what time something is.
| Во сколько? |
The preposition в [sometimes во] means, depending on context and case, in, at, to. I can take both the accusative and the prepositional cases. We’ll learn more about it later. Combined with сколько, it means at what time? Literally, we are asking at how much? In this phrase, the accusative case is being used. Just learn the phrase. We’ll learn this case later. Spoiler alert: it’s relatively easy to learn!
| В котором часу? |
This one is used on occasions. It literally means in which hour? The prepositional case is being used here, which we have not learned yet. Let’s not worry about it too much. Just learn the phrase.
Having learned these important words and phrases, you can know express the following:
| –Сколько сейчас времени? –Сейчас семь часов. -What time is it? -It’s seven o’clock. |
| –Во сколько у тебя есть свидание? –У меня есть свидание в шесть часов. -What time do you have a date? -I have a date at six o’clock. |
| У нас есть [свободное] время в два часа. We have [free] time at two o’clock. |
If you live far away from someone and you want to inquire about their local time, you can say:
| Сколько времени у тебя? What’s the time where you are? |
That’s all for today’s lesson. See you in the next!
| Last Edit: 12/13/2025. |
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