Lesson 12 - Telling time 2

In the following section, you will learn how to tell the time.

Case suffixes throughout the lesson will be marked in red to help you become more acquainted with them.

To ask what time it is, you simply say the following questions:

Mitä kello oon?

What time is it?

Paljonko kello oon?

What time is it?

Kunka paljon kello oon?

What time is it?

To answer, simply say:

Kello oon ... / Se oon ...

It is ...

Nyt oon ...

Now it is ...

But take note that Kvens, unlike most English-speaking countries, use the 24-hour clock, meaning instead of 9 pm., the Kvens say 21 o'clock.

Alternatively, you can also employ adverbials to distinguish between morning and afternoon.

Telling minutes in Kven is quite straightforward, but there are a few things to learn beforehand.

Let's begin with "half past." In English, we say "half past" 6, indicating that it's 6:30. However, in Kven, there's no equivalent of "past", so instead of saying "half past 6", you're saying "half 7."

For other minutes, including quarter, we use "vaila" or "yli" to express "to" or "past." For example:

When expressing time between 15 and 45 minutes, we use "vaila" and "yli" in combination with "puoli." This is a more common practice. Let's take a look at the following examples:

When it is almost the top of the hour or the half-hour, we can say the following expression "tyhä vailuu ... minuttii sillo oon ..." meaning "... minutes left to..."

Additionally, we can use "tasan," meaning "sharp," to indicate the exact hour.

In spoken Kven, it is possible to say merely the numbers in the following order: hour + minutes.

Mihin aikhaan met kohattelema?

What time do we meet?

Koska met kohattelema?

When do we meet?

There are two possible ways to answer, with or without the word "kello." We use the ablative case when "kello" is omitted.

Met kohattelema kello kuusi illala.

We meet at 6 o'clock in the evening.

Met kohattelema kuuelta illala.

We meet at 6 in the evening.