What's the time? Numbers in Polish.

Hi folks
I believe when telling the time in Polish, the numbers are to be related in ordinal numbers. If I say it's one o'clock - I say 'godzina pierwsza'. Minutes after the hour is expressed by the number of minutes plus the preporsition 'po' plus the locative case of the hour: five past five, I say 'pięć po piątej'. The minutes before the hour is expressed by the preposition 'za' plus the accusative case of the minutes plus the nominative case of the hour!!!!

So, for example, if it's:
10 past 10 or 10 to 10, or
20 past one or 20 to one,

are the numbers for the 'hour' expressed and spelt differently (bearing in mind the above-mentioned locative and nominative cases).

Could any kind soul give a list of numbers which are used in telling the time.

Many thanks kind people.

Chzrąszcz

o godzinie piątej - at five o'clock; o piątej - at five - 'o' preposition requires locative case - it should be noted that the ordinal numbers here are in female gender (because godzina is female gender in Polish) - ordinal numerals decline very much in the pattern of adjectives which have quite regular declension pattern the major difficulty is the gender thing makes adjectives have seperate endings for each gender in singular and another one for plural

10 po 10-tej - dziesięć po dziesiątej
za 10 10-ta - za dziesięć dziesiąta

za 5 20-sta - za pięć dwudziesta
5 po 20-tej - pięć po dwudziestej

half past seven - pół do ósmej ( in colloquial speech it is 'w pół do ósmej') - it is a contraction of 'pół godziny do ósmej' half an hour till eight'

so... depending on whether it's .... past the hour, or to the hour, the number (of the hour) changes (spelling)???

is... past 1 o'clock .... po pierwszej? is... minutes to 1 o'clock is .... za pierwsza?
is... past 2 o'clock ... po drugej? is... minutes to 2 o'clock is ... za drugesta? etc.....
is... past 3 o'clock ... po trzej?
is... past 4 o'clock ... po czwartej?
is... past 5 o'clock ... po piatej?
is... past 6 o'clock ... po szostej?
is... past 7 o'clock ... po siodmej?
is... past 8 o'clock ... po osmej?
is... past 9 o'clock ... po dziewatnej?
is... past 10 o'clock ..po dziezatnej?
is... past 11 o'clock ..po jedenastej?
is... past 12 o'clock ..po dwanastej? Can anyone check these numbers...... Cheers gumishu!!!! As you can see, I struggling a bit

no probs! I've found an answer!!!!!

za (minutes) pierwsza


za (minutes) druga


it's trzecia, so:

(minutes) po trzeciej; za (minutes) trzecia

the thing is while 'po' refers to godzina/ the hour - (po trzeciej - after/past three ) 'za' refers to minutes and godzina is not affected (and remains in nominative)


po dziewiątej po dziesiątej - kwadrans po dziesiątej - quarter past ten - za kwadrans dziesiąta - quarter to ten

the endings -ta -sta -wsza -ga -cia that you can use with (respective) numbers is only to depict that a number should be read as ordinal much like the English 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th and so on

so you've got 1-sza or 1-wsza (in singular for a female gender which applies to hours)
2-ga
3-cia
4-ta
5-ta
11-ta or 11-sta

the thing is ordinal numbers decline like adjectives so you also have 1-ej for female gender (in a couple of cases)

I suggest you learn the pattern of declination for adjectives in female gender (for a start) - it's actually the simplest declination pattern for adjectives only two forms are present you just need to know which forms to use for which case

You can say (not write, I assume it's not polish you learn ):
6.20 - szósta dwadzieścia po południu (p.m.) or 6.20 - szósta dwadzieścia rano (a.m.)/ or:
at 6.20 - o szóstej dwadzieścia po południu/o szóstej dwadzieścia rano.
When you say 18.20 - osiemnasta dwadzieścia, you don't have to add "po południu" and for sure not "rano" hehehe :)

5.45 - piąta czterdzieści pięć rano (a.m.)/po południu (p.m.)
17.45 - siedemnasta czterdzieści pięć.

I belive it's not polish you learn from books but a lot of people use short forms, just to make life easier ( or not??) :) . It's quite similar to tell years in english.

Only in Polish (as in the Romance languages French, Spanish and Italian), someone "isn't" an age, e.g. How old are you? - I'm twenty-six. etc., rather, they "have years", i.e. "How many years HAVE you?" (literally translated): "Ile masz lat?" resp. "Ile ma pan/pani lat?" etc..

In this, as in many other respects such as telling time as well, Polish differs substantially from English-:)

gumishu ReservoirDog

great stuff both of you! It's bad enough learning the 'normal' numbers, never mind the other forms to do with time. :-/ onwards and upwards.....

thanks gumishu... you're a star!

you are all a strange lot - I already write from my bed for half an hour ;)

1 o'clock - pierwsza
2- druga
3- trzecia
4-czwarta
5- piąta
6- szósta
7 - siódma
8- ósma
9- dziewiąta
10- dziesiąta
11- jedenasta
12- dwunasta ("w nocy" - at night, or "w południe" - noon)..I forgot to add this :)

at 1 o'clock - o pierwszej
at 2 - o drugiej (exception!!!)
at 3 - o trzeciej
at 4 - o czwartej
at 5 - o piątej
at 6 - o szóstej
at 7 - o siódmej
at 8 - o ósmej
at 9 - o dziewiątej
at 10 - o dziesiątej
at 11 - o jedenastej
at 12 - o dwunastej

and minutes like normal numbers ;)

Blimey ReservoirDog

Cheers for that. Don't knowhow you know all of this stuff.......

Hi ReservoirDog et al.,

For the 24 hour clock (I may have to know this), are the number as follows:

13:00 jedenasta
14:00 dziewiata
15:00 trzynasta
16:00 czternasta
17:00 pietnasta
18:00 szesnasta
19:00 siedemnasta
20:00 osiemnasta
21:00 dwudziesta pierwsza
22:00 dwudziasta druga
23:00 dwudziasta trzecia
24:00 dwudziesta czwarta .... are these correct? I would rather use the 12-hour clock!

13.00. - trzynasta (1 pm)
14.00 czternasta (2 pm)
15.00 piętnasta (3 pm)
16.00 szesnasta (4 pm)
17.00 siedemnasta (5 pm)
18.00 osiemnasta (6 pm)
19.00 dziewiętnasta (7 pm)
20.00 dwudziesta (8 pm)
21,00 dwudziesta pierwsza (9 pm)
22.00 dwudziesta druga (10 pm)
23.00 dwudziesta trzecia (11 pm)
24.00 dwudziesta czwarta (midnight)

It'll become easier once you've got the cardinal numbers straight.


You can do it too, just add "po południu" or "wieczorem" for p.m. - 15.00 is trzecia po południu, and so on.

they are...hmmm, not all of them :D
If I were you I would learn just from 1 o'clock to 12 o'clock and just add "rano, po południu, w nocy, w południe, wieczorem"

*"rano"- 5 - 11 a.m.
**12 - "w południe" - at noon, "w nocy" - at night,
"wieczorem" 7-10 o'clock p.m.
"w nocy" - 10 p.m. - 1/4 a.m.

for geeks:
* (but you can also say "rano" from 1-11 a.m). At 1,2,3,4 o'clock a.m is usually dark so we say "w nocy" - at night.

**or just "o północy" - at midnight (it's not dwunasta o północy, it's just "północ" or "o północy") but do'n learn this now

po dziewiątej po dziesiątej.

gumishu
That has gone into my learning notebook!