Telling the time in Croatian

Ask the time in Croatian

Do you wonder what time it is? On this page we will teach you how to properly say the exact time in Croatian. We will start with a few basic rules and then you will see some examples. Firstly, it is important to know how to identify and recognize these questions: 

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The clock rules

Croatians take a relaxed approach to being on time, so do not expect too much. 24- hour clock is officially used by all Croatians. It is very common to hear the following way of expressing the time, i.e on television or radio. Keep in mind that the times are expressed in plural. The only exception is one hour, which is in singular. 

Apart from that, the clock is divided into two parts, on the left side it is "minute" meaning minutes and on the right side it is "i" which literally means "and", word "sati" means hours. 

Below are some examples of clock times in the table!

English	Croatian	Photo
It's one o'clock	Jedan je sat
It's three o'clock	Tri su sata
It's twelve o'clock	Dvanaest sati
It's ten o'clock	Devet sati

• Ivane, već je dvanaest sati, moramo ići! - Ivane, it's already noon, we must go!
• Uvijek kasniš, već je deset sati i petanest minuta. - You are always late, it's already fifteen past ten.

The half hours

In order to understand the usage of "half hours", in Croatian you should just add "i pol" to express "half an hour"

The quarters

Comparing to English language, in Croatian you should first add the hour and than minutes. 

The minutes

In Croatian, you should first say the hour + minutes. If in English is used "to" we will translate that as "do".

Times of the day in Croatian

If you have time, it might be useful to know about which part of your day you have. Below you can find an overview of the day parts in Croatian. 

The times in Croatian are not so hard to learn. If you learn the basics, you will be able to express the time easily. Until next time!