Free Telling Time in Spanish Worksheets

How the Spanish clock worksheets work

Read the clock prints clock faces with two lines under each, where students write the time in words. Draw the hands turns it around: the time is written over an empty face, and students draw the hands. Match clocks to times sets out six clocks, A to F, and six times in words, and students write the matching letter. Digital to words gives a time such as 2:45, or 14:45 on the 24-hour clock, to write out in Spanish. The Reference chart fits on one page, with the phrase for every five minutes past an hour, one o'clock, noon and midnight, the parts of the day and 24-hour examples. It has no answer key.

You choose the minutes (o'clock, half hours, quarter hours, every five minutes or any minute), the 12-hour or 24-hour clock and how many clocks or times to print: 6, 12, 18 or 24. Read the clock and Draw the hands come with standard clocks, 12 to a page, or bigger ones, 6 to a page. A fixed PDF has the same times every time you print it. Here, Shuffle gives new times with the same settings, and the answer key matches the new sheet.

The clock faces are drawn by code, and the hour hand moves between the hours with the minutes: at 2:45 it sits three quarters of the way to the 3. On the 24-hour clock, a small inner ring shows 13 to 23 and 00. A clock face alone can't tell morning from afternoon, so when the part of the day or the 24-hour clock is on, the faces on Read the clock and Match clocks to times get a.m., p.m., noon or midnight under them. Every sheet is black and white for photocopying.

How to tell time in Spanish, in Spain and Latin America

Es la una, but son las dos, because la una is singular. Both regions use y cuarto for quarter past, y media for half past and en punto for on the dot. After the half hour, they split. Spain names the next hour and takes the minutes away with menos: 2:45 is son las tres menos cuarto, and 2:40 is las tres menos veinte. Latin America counts the minutes to the next hour with para, as in es un cuarto para las tres and son veinte para las tres.

For the part of the day, the worksheets follow the Real Academia Española (RAE): de la madrugada from midnight to about 6 a.m., de la mañana until noon, de la tarde until about 8 p.m. and de la noche until midnight. Spain also uses del mediodía up to about 1 or 2 p.m. Noon is las doce del mediodía or es mediodía, and the RAE calls las doce de la tarde wrong. Midnight is las doce de la noche or es medianoche.

The 24-hour clock is for timetables. There, 14:30 is son las catorce y treinta or las catorce treinta, and horas and minutos are optional. Cuarto and media don't go with it, which makes 18:15 las dieciocho y quince. The RAE's grammar gives las seis y cuarto, not las dieciocho y cuarto.

The Spanish time phrases chart

Every five minutes past three, then one o'clock, noon and midnight, with Spain and Latin America side by side. The Reference chart exercise prints the same phrases on one page.

Using the worksheets in class

Start with o'clock and half hours, add quarter hours next, and save any minute for last. Hand out the Reference chart with the first sheet, or project the phrase chart on this page. Press Shuffle between copies, and students sitting side by side get different times. The answer key starts on its own page, so you can print the sheets without it and keep it for grading.

If the numbers slow students down (veinte, cuarenta y cinco), the Spanish numbers to words converter writes them out, and there are Spanish verb conjugation worksheets for the verbs. Between lessons, the telling time in Spanish quiz runs the same options on screen and explains every miss.

Frequently asked questions