Hours and weekdays in Portuguese

Level A1

Hours and weekdays in Portuguese

You are arranging when to work. Name the day, then add the clock time with à or às. Start with whole hours and half hours; other minutes are supported reading only. Allow about twelve minutes, or twenty with listening and repetition.

Recover a familiar plan

Quando means “when”; você means “you”. In Quando você vai trabalhar?, vai trabalhar means “are going to work”. Vou trabalhar means “I am going to work”: vou is followed directly by trabalhar, without a word for “to”. Amanhã means “tomorrow”; hoje means “today”. The answer below supplies a day; now we will make it more precise.

Choose a day

Listen to the seven weekdays in order and compare their translations. These names normally begin with a lowercase letter in Portuguese. Segunda-feira through sexta-feira often lose -feira in conversation; use the full forms here. Hoje and amanhã already mean “today” and “tomorrow”, with no added word for “on”. In a short answer about one plan you can name a weekday directly: Segunda-feira, às oito horas. This is one Monday in context, not a rule for saying “every Monday”.

Add the clock time

In the template, dia means “day”. Hora means a clock hour here; horas is its plural. Recover oito (8), dez (10), sete (7) and duas (2). Hour is feminine, so um becomes uma and dois becomes duas: à uma hora, às duas horas. For these scheduled times use à with one o’clock and às with the other hours shown. The grave accent is part of the written form: à combines a + a, and às combines a + as. You do not need a general accent test to use these models.

Às oito horas means “at eight o’clock”; horas can be left out, as in Às dez. Add e meia for thirty minutes after the named hour: às oito e meia = 8:30. E means “and”; meia here means half an hour. Say meia, even with duas or oito. Vou trabalhar às oito e meia puts this time after the known work plan.

Distinguish an event time from the time now. Que horas? asks the hour of a plan already mentioned. Que horas são? asks “What time is it?”; São sete e meia answers “It is 7:30”, without às. In this clock answer são means “it is”; at one o’clock the singular is é: É uma hora. The examples below have audio.

dia, à / às hora.

Make the plan precise

Two people discuss tomorrow’s work. First listen for the day, then for the hour. The second question Que horas? needs no repeated work verb because both people already know which plan they mean. The answer Às oito e meia gives 8:30.

Recognize another minute value

Read with this support: duas = 2, quinze = 15, e joins them; São duas e quinze means “It is 2:15”. This line is for recognition, not a production task. For your own answers in this lesson, keep to whole hours and e meia.

Try it, then keep the model

Before listening to the answers below, say “Monday at eight o’clock” and “I am going to work at half past eight”. Check the two models, then change Monday to Sunday (domingo) and eight o’clock to ten (dez) to make a new short answer.

Keep this: a day can stand directly in a short plan answer; à uma hora and às duas/oito horas specify the time; e meia adds thirty minutes. Hoje is today and amanhã is tomorrow. Ask Que horas? to make a known plan precise. Months and calendar dates come later.

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