Arabic Vocabulary Lists > Telling the Time in Arabic
Clock time in Arabic starts with الساعة (as-saʿa, the hour), then the hour as a feminine number, then the minutes joined by wa (and) or illa (except). So 3:15 is as-saʿa ath-thalitha wa rubʿ, and 3:45 is ar-rabiʿa illa rubʿ, the fourth except a quarter. The word for time in general is وقت (waqt).
The three tables below give every hour from one to twelve, every minute construction Arabic actually uses, and the five prayer times, which is how appointments get named across much of the Arab world. Each one is shown in Modern Standard Arabic and in the Egyptian and Levantine forms people say out loud. Transliteration follows the scheme used on our common Arabic phrases page: kh is the ch of Scottish loch, ʿ is ع, and ʾ is a glottal stop.
The hours: one o'clock to twelve o'clock in Arabic
Modern Standard Arabic names the hour with a feminine ordinal number, not the counting number a learner already knows. Three o'clock is as-saʿa ath-thalitha, the third hour, not thalatha. One o'clock is the exception: it uses the cardinal al-wahida. Egyptian and Levantine drop the ordinals entirely and use plain counting numbers, which makes the dialects easier here than the standard language.
| Time | Modern Standard Arabic | Egyptian | Levantine |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1:00 | الساعة الواحدة as-saʿa al-wahida | الساعة واحدة is-saʿa wahda | الساعة وحدة is-saʿa wahde |
| 2:00 | الساعة الثانية as-saʿa ath-thaniya | الساعة اتنين is-saʿa itnein | الساعة تنتين is-saʿa tintein |
| 3:00 | الساعة الثالثة as-saʿa ath-thalitha | الساعة تلاتة is-saʿa talata | الساعة تلاتة is-saʿa tlate |
| 4:00 | الساعة الرابعة as-saʿa ar-rabiʿa | الساعة أربعة is-saʿa arbaʿa | الساعة أربعة is-saʿa arbaʿa |
| 5:00 | الساعة الخامسة as-saʿa al-khamisa | الساعة خمسة is-saʿa khamsa | الساعة خمسة is-saʿa khamse |
| 6:00 | الساعة السادسة as-saʿa as-sadisa | الساعة ستة is-saʿa sitta | الساعة ستة is-saʿa sitte |
| 7:00 | الساعة السابعة as-saʿa as-sabiʿa | الساعة سبعة is-saʿa sabʿa | الساعة سبعة is-saʿa sabʿa |
| 8:00 | الساعة الثامنة as-saʿa ath-thamina | الساعة تمانية is-saʿa tamanya | الساعة تمانية is-saʿa tmane |
| 9:00 | الساعة التاسعة as-saʿa at-tasiʿa | الساعة تسعة is-saʿa tisʿa | الساعة تسعة is-saʿa tisʿa |
| 10:00 | الساعة العاشرة as-saʿa al-ʿashira | الساعة عشرة is-saʿa ʿashara | الساعة عشرة is-saʿa ʿashra |
| 11:00 | الساعة الحادية عشرة as-saʿa al-hadiya ʿashra | الساعة حداشر is-saʿa hidashar | الساعة حدعش is-saʿa hdaʿsh |
| 12:00 | الساعة الثانية عشرة as-saʿa ath-thaniya ʿashra | الساعة اتناشر is-saʿa itnashar | الساعة اتنعش is-saʿa itnaʿsh |
The reason for the feminine ending is that ساعة is a feminine noun, and the number describes it like any adjective. This trips up learners who arrive here already able to count, because the counting number and the hour are different words for eleven of the twelve hours. Our Arabic numbers chart carries the full cardinal and ordinal sets, including the masculine ordinals used everywhere except the clock.
Minutes past and minutes to: wa and illa
Minutes attach to the hour with wa و for past and illa إلا for to. Arabic prefers fractions over minute counts: a quarter rubʿ, a third thulth, a half nisf. The third is the one with no English equivalent, and it means twenty minutes. The rows below all use three o'clock as the hour.
| Time | Literally | Modern Standard Arabic | Egyptian | Levantine |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3:05 | and five minutes | وخمس دقائق wa khams daqaʾiq | وخمسة wi khamsa | وخمسة w khamse |
| 3:10 | and ten minutes | وعشر دقائق wa ʿashr daqaʾiq | وعشرة wi ʿashara | وعشرة w ʿashra |
| 3:15 | and a quarter | والربع wa ar-rubʿ | وربع wi rubʿ | وربع w rubʿ |
| 3:20 | and a third | والثلث wa ath-thulth | وتلت wi tilt | وتلت w tilt |
| 3:25 | and a half except five | وخمس وعشرين دقيقة wa khams wa-ʿishrin daqiqa | ونص إلا خمسة wi nuss illa khamsa | ونص إلا خمسة w nuss illa khamse |
| 3:30 | and a half | والنصف wa an-nisf | ونص wi nuss | ونص w nuss |
| 3:35 | and a half and five | والنصف وخمس دقائق wa an-nisf wa khams daqaʾiq | ونص وخمسة wi nuss wi khamsa | ونص وخمسة w nuss w khamse |
| 3:40 | (four) except a third | إلا ثلث illa thulth | إلا تلت illa tilt | إلا تلت illa tilt |
| 3:45 | (four) except a quarter | إلا ربع illa rubʿ | إلا ربع illa rubʿ | إلا ربع illa rubʿ |
| 3:50 | (four) except ten minutes | إلا عشر دقائق illa ʿashr daqaʾiq | إلا عشرة illa ʿashara | إلا عشرة illa ʿashra |
| 3:55 | (four) except five minutes | إلا خمس دقائق illa khams daqaʾiq | إلا خمسة illa khamsa | إلا خمسة illa khamse |
The bracketed rows are the ones to read twice. From 3:40 onwards the hour spoken is four, not three, so 3:45 is ar-rabiʿa illa rubʿ. Arabic switches to the next hour the moment it starts subtracting, exactly as English switches at "quarter to four". A learner who keeps naming the hour still showing on the clock is an hour out for the whole second half of every hour, and this is the single most common mistake on this page.
The other trap is 3:25 and 3:35. Egyptian and Levantine speakers rarely say twenty-five; they say half except five and half and five, pivoting around the half hour. It sounds like arithmetic the first time you hear it and stops sounding like anything by the tenth.
For an exact figure over ten minutes the word دقيقة (daqiqa, minute) comes back in the dialects, so 3:22 in the Levant is tlate w tnein w ʿishrin daʾiʾa. Under ten the number stands on its own. Learn the fractions first: they cover 3:15, 3:20, 3:30, 3:40 and 3:45, which is most of what anyone says out loud.
The five prayer times, used as clock times
In much of the Arab world appointments are fixed by prayer instead of by the clock. "Come after al-maghrib" is a normal and precise thing to say, and it tracks the sunset through the year rather than sitting at a fixed hour. The same five words are the everyday names for the parts of the day, so they earn their place in a beginner's vocabulary before the hours do.
| Prayer | Arabic | Transliteration | Part of the day it names |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dawn | الفجر | al-fajr | First light until sunrise. Also the ordinary word for daybreak. |
| Midday | الظهر | az-zuhr | Just after the sun passes its highest point, so around noon but not at noon. |
| Afternoon | العصر | al-ʿasr | Mid to late afternoon, running until sunset. |
| Sunset | المغرب | al-maghrib | Immediately after the sun goes down. The same word means the west. |
| Night | العشاء | al-ʿishaʾ | Once the twilight has gone. The evening meal shares the word. |
None of these sits at a fixed clock hour. They shift by season and by latitude, so mosques publish a timetable for each day, and al-maghrib in a Gulf summer and al-maghrib in a Moroccan winter are hours apart. If someone gives you a prayer as a meeting time, check that day's timetable for that city.
Saying morning, evening, and at what time
Arabic has no am and pm. You name the part of the day after the time: as-saʿa at-tasiʿa sabahan for nine in the morning, as-saʿa at-tasiʿa masaʾan for nine at night. The four common markers are صباحا (sabahan, in the morning), ظهرا (zuhran, at midday), مساء (masaʾan, in the evening), and ليلا (laylan, at night). Timetables, airport boards, and television listings use the 24-hour clock and skip all of this.
To say at a time, Arabic uses the preposition في (fi): fi as-saʿa ath-thamina, at eight o'clock. Like every Arabic preposition it puts the noun after it into the genitive case, a pattern worth meeting properly in our guide to Arabic prepositions and the cases they take. Pair a time with a day and you have an appointment: yawm al-arbiʿaʾ fi as-saʿa al-khamisa, Wednesday at five, using the forms in our Arabic days of the week chart.
Asking the time is also the shortest conversation you will ever have in Arabic. The answer is four words and then it is over, so the useful next step is the small talk that follows it, which in a hot country is almost always the heat: Arabic weather words covers that, and the rest of the daily vocabulary sits on our Arabic vocabulary lists hub.
Frequently asked questions
How do you ask what time it is in Arabic?
Modern Standard Arabic asks kam as-saʿa, written كم الساعة، and adding al-an, meaning now, removes any chance of it being heard as a question about price. Egypt reverses the order and says as-saʿa kam, and the Levant says addesh as-saʿa. All three are understood everywhere, so the reply is the harder half.
What is the Arabic word for time?
There are three, and they are not interchangeable. Waqt وقت is time in the everyday sense of a moment or a slot in a schedule. Zaman زمن is time as an era or as an abstraction, closer to the English age or epoch. Saʿa ساعة is the hour, the clock, and the watch on your wrist, and it is the word every clock-time sentence starts with.
Why is the hour feminine in Arabic?
Because saʿa ساعة, the word for hour, is feminine, and the number that follows it works as an adjective describing it. So the number has to be feminine too, which is why the hours end in the -a sound: ath-thaniya for two, ath-thalitha for three, ar-rabiʿa for four. Get this wrong and you have said the counting number instead of the hour.
What does illa mean when telling the time in Arabic?
Illa إلا means except, and Arabic uses it where English says to or till. Quarter to four is ar-rabiʿa illa rubʿ, literally the fourth except a quarter. The hour named is always the hour you are counting back from, so illa rubʿ after four means 3:45, not 4:45. Naming the hour you can already see on the clock is the classic learner error.
How do you say twenty past the hour in Arabic?
Arabic counts it as a third of an hour, not as twenty minutes. Twenty past three is ath-thalitha wa ath-thulth, the third and a third, and Egypt and the Levant both shorten thulth to tilt. Twenty to four runs the same way with illa: ar-rabiʿa illa thulth. English has no equivalent fraction, so this one has to be learned rather than translated.