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Comment by kashyapc | Hacker News Reader

It reminds me of a similar problem I face in Dutch (and still trip up if I'm not conscious):

In Dutch (my 4th language), "half nine" ("half negen") means 8:30. Whereas in English[1] "half nine" means 9:30.

So there were times when I missed appointments by an hour! After 7 years of being immersed in the language, I still have to deliberately engage my brain whenever someone says "half nine" (or whatever the hour) in Dutch to carefully translate it to the correct time.

[1] British and Irish English only? Others can correct me here.

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In the United States we do not say "half nine". We'd say "half PAST nine" sometimes but honestly "nine thirty" is a lot more common.

It's very colloquial and very regional but I've heard English speakers say it. The VAST majority only used "half past x" in my experience.

Same thing in German though. Usually you only use "drei viertel neun" and "halb neun" (i.e. 8:45 == three quarters nine, and 8:30) but in some regions they say "viertel neun" (quarter nine) for 8:15, but the people not from that region often mishear it as "viertel nach neun" (quarter past nine) because why would you say the former, so the speaker must have spoke the 'nach' too silent...

there is same issue in Slovak/Czech vs English, which is very confusing with my kid which was raised at first in English and later we added Czech

English is quite logical - half PAST nine = 9:30, but in Czech/Slovak you say literally "at quarter on ten" (9:15), "at half of ten" (9:30), "at three quarters on ten" (9:45) and that "on" ain't really obvious for someone who is not familiar with this terminology, personally I completely stopped using this terminology because I always found it archaic and extremely confusing and just use digits "nine fifteen", "nine thirty" etc.

same goes for fractions vs percentages, I don't understand media love for fractions, instead simply writing 60% they write three fifts, so I have to calculate it in my mind back to 60 to know what they are talking about instead if they used one simple digit

Wow, "at quarter on ten" / "at half of ten" takes even more brain cycles for me to parse. Thanks for the Slovak/Czech examples. (Incidentally, I work with a lot of Czech colleagues.)

Yeah, it makes really no sense even for native speaker when you think about it, people just accept this nonsense, in English it's either how many minutes past some time, or how many minutes to next hour, but in Czech/Slovak you talk "on hour", not sure what's origin of this nonsense, but I doubt majority of people could explain the meaning.

We also commonly use double negative:

English - I did nothing

Slovak/Czech - I didn't do nothing (reverse I did everything)

People don't think about it, just accept this nonsense and go on with it.

Czech language has even way more illogical things than Slovak, since it is older, for instance they have special letter ů which sounds exactly same as ú (as oo in Doom), but ů can't be used as first letter of word, where you must use ú and vice versa, if it's not first letter must use ů and can't use ú, despite both of them having exactly same meaning/sound.

> "at three quarters on ten"

What a mouthful. Can I ask you to write how it is written and spelled out?

https://slideplayer.cz/slide/12864735/78/images/5/Pozn%C3%A1...

Here in Czech, learning materials for 2nd grade, though my kid is learning it already in 1st grade.

Ah, as I though it's just rolls fine in the spoken language. "Tr/ee/chetvert" should be a good enough approximation, I suppose?

I don't think any English speaking person, in whatever variant, would use that expression.

What "half negen" means is easier to remember when you contrast "half" to "vol"/"heel" -> half nine is not full nine yet.

To be clear, nobody uses "vol negen" or "heel negen", it's just "negen (uur)".

Well, I have heard in real "half nine" used by an Irish colleague. And looking up on the internet, there's similar confusion[1], and someone clarifies "half nine = 9.30"

And thank you for the "vol" / "heel" distinction in this context. I feel that definitely is going to stick! :-)

https://www.antimoon.com/forum/t14406.htm

> British and Irish English only? Others can correct me here.

You are correct....

Unlike 'merkin English, in British English saying 'half nine' [meaning 9:30] is fine and one would only say 'half-past-nine' if they were feeling verbose, or have a Dutch workmate and were trying to avoid confusion :-)

usually someone would say "half past nine" I'm not sure I've actually heard it your way

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