French 3.6. Telling Time & Describing the Weather

Telling time and describing the weather are fundamental language skills in any language including French.

Telling the Time

In French, the verb “être” (to be) is used in the third-person form “est” to describe time.

To ask what time it is, use the expression: “Quelle heure est-il?” meaning “What time is it?” in English, or more literally: “What hour is it?”

To ask “At what time …?”, we use “À quelle heure …?”

Expressing Minutes

To express time in hours and minutes, we simply add the minutes after the hour.

If you want to say: it is minutes to a certain hour, e.g., “It’s five to ten,” use “moins” (minus).

The “15 minutes” and “30 minutes” can sometimes be replaced with “quart” (quarter) and “demi” (half), respectively.

Remember that the French officially use the 24-hour clock format. For example, “1 p.m.” is “13h” in French.

Another minor note is that the letter “h” is often used in French instead of the colon, which is used to describe time in English, e.g., “13h15” (1:15 p.m.).

Other Time Expressions

The expressions “a.m.” and “p.m.” are not commonly used in French, but you will may hear some people who tell the time in the twelve-hour clock format using expressions like: “du matin” (in the morning), “de l’après-midi” (in the afternoon), or “du soir” (in the evening).

Here are some expressions that are used to express time with examples:

Weather Expressions

Describing the weather in French often involves the use of some idiomatic expressions that make little sense if translated into English literally.

For example, the expression “Il fait trop chaud” translates literally to “It makes much heat.” However, it just means that it is too hot.

Similarly, the expression “Il y a du soleil,” which means that the sun is shining, makes little sense when translated literally as “There is the sun.”

Here, we list a few common ways of describing the weather using some idiomatic expressions as well as other simple expressions.

Weather Expressions using the verb “faire”

Weather Expressions using “il y a”

The expression “il y a” means “there is” or “there are.”  It is used in many weather expressions, such as:

Weather Expressions using the verb “être”

We can also use the verb “être” in the third-person singular form followed by an adjective to describe the weather.

Weather Expressions using a simple verb

One can also use a simple verb expression in the third-person singular form, such as “Il pleut,” where “pleut” is the third-person singular form of the present tense of the verb “pleuvoir” (to rain).

Examples include:

Next: Present Participle & Gerund

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