3 ms·
My native language is Dutch, but I've been living in an English speaking country for almost 10 years now. It's annoying to having to change my mindset whenever
by woutr_be 5y ago
My native language is Dutch, but I've been living in an English speaking country for almost 10 years now. It's annoying to having to change my mindset whenever I visit friends and family in my native country.
In Belgium, we say 25 as "five and twenty" (same as German), which makes sense, but if you've been saying "twenty-five" for 10 years, it does throw you off.
- WJW 5y agoNot to mention that "half five" means 17:30 in most English speaking countries but 16:30 in Dutch.
- BruceEel 5y agoand let's not forget our masterpiece "ten to half five", one of the most straightforwardly intuitive ways of saying "16:20"...
- jefftk 5y agoIn the US, I don't think most people would know what to make of "half five". (I bet something like 20% of people would think hard and then decide you meant 2:30)
- woutr_be 5y agoI have noticed that I somewhat simplified my vocabulary in that regard, previously I would say "half five", but now I just go with "four thirty".
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Delk 5y agoI've personally opted to never use the expression "half five" in English because it seems able to cause any amount of confusion and misunderstanding among people from different linguistic backgrounds.
- kwhitefoot 5y agoI's ambiguous in British English, at least it used to be. Half five can be short for either half of five (4:30) or half past five (5:30).
- barrucadu 5y agoReally? Where in Britain would that be ambiguous? I've grown up here and I've never heard someone say "half X" to mean "half an hour to X".
- mudita 5y agoIn some dialects of German they go even further, using “quarter five” for “16:15” and “three quarter five” for “16:45”.
- jeroenhd 5y agoAt least that makes sense, telling time in Dutch switches orientation halfway through the hour, towards the closest half hour. German does the same thing, I believe. "five past five" is 5:05, then of course "ten past five" and "quarter part five". Then comes "ten to half six" which would be 5:20. Then half six, ten past half six, quarter to six, ten to six and five to six. It's interesting to see how Dutch and German time telling is clearly oriented at half hours while English is oriented at whole hours. Now that the world is ruled by digital clocks, many people will just use digital (24 hour) time. "Eighteen hour four" would be the current time in this notation, which is a lot simpler. It's funny how the tool we use to tell time dictates the way we pronounce things!
- TulliusCicero 5y agoI’m American and I wouldn’t know what to make of “half five” in English (I speak some German and it’s the same as Dutch there). To say 17:30 you’d say “half past five”.