Let’s learn how to tell 12-hour clock time in Mandarin Chinese.

Today’s lesson covers the telling time, including how to say half past the hour, and how many minutes past the hour. Besides, you also get to know the correct way to tell time to someone with the 8 time periods such as before dawn, morning, noon, afternoon, dusk, evening, night, and midnight.

To prepare for this lesson, you should understand and have the best practice of counting from 1 to 59 to tell the time, including hours and minutes. If you are not learning how to count numbers in Mandarin Chinese, please watch our previous lesson “Let’s Learn Numbers in Chinese | Lesson 01”.

Time periods in Chinese

半夜 (bàn yè) මධ්‍යම රාත්‍රිය | Midnight (12am – 12.59am)

凌晨 (líng chén) හිමිදිරි පාන්දර | Before dawn (1am – 4.59am)

早上 (zǎo shang) උදේ පාන්දර | Early morning (5am – 8.59am)

中午(zhōng wǔ) දහවල් | Noon (12pm – 12.59pm)

上午 (shàng wǔ) උදෑසන | Morning (9am – 11.59am) 下午 (xià wǔ) දහවලෙන් පසු | Afternoon (1pm – 4.59pm)

晚上(wǎn shàng) සවස | Evening (7pm -11.59pm)

傍晚 (bang wǎn) සන්ධ්යාව | Dusk (5pm – 6.59pm)