Language/Moroccan-arabic/Vocabulary/How-to-Tell-the-Time

How to Tell the Time in Moroccan Arabic

Hello everyone !

This course will focus on the Moroccan dialect.

How do you translate "hour"?

• First question: How do you translate "hour" in Arabic?

• Well, we will translate it as "saha"!

What time is it?

You want to know the time, so you approach a person to ask him, and you say:

• "Chahele raha saha?" ("what time is it ?")

How to answer "What time is it?"

The person responds:

• "Raha zauje" (it's two o'clock)

Explanations:

• "Chahèle" translates to "which". It could also have been translated as "how much".
• "Raha" translates as "it is" (in the question, it will therefore be "is it", and in the answer, "it is").
• "Saha" means, as said above, "hour".

Note that with the Moroccan dialect, we will not say "it is 14:00", but "it is 2:00". Indeed the time will translate with the "12 hour" system.

The time will be told using the translation of the numbers from 1 to 12 (see course on numbers if necessary).

• For example to say "it's 3 o'clock", I would say with the Moroccan dialect "raha tlèta".

Note that midnight is translated in the same way as noon, namely "tnache".

Minutes

Regarding the minutes, if I want to say "it is 2:23 a.m.", I would say "raha zauje o tlèta o hachréne", i.e.:

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[Number corresponding to the hour] o [Number corresponding to the minutes]

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Note that the quarter of an hour, half an hour, and minus a quarter translate respectively:

• "And a quarter": "O rbahe"
• "And a half": "O nsse"
• "Less than a quarter": "Kale larbahe"

So to say "it's 2:15", I would say "raha zauje o rbahe".

Have you seen how simple it is?

Train while you can!

By the way, what time is it right now? 😛

Other Lessons

• Vehicles
• Jobs
• Being Sick
• City
• Time
• Mealtime Expressions
• Count to 10
• Adjectives in Moroccan Arabic
• Numbers 20, 30, 40 ... 99
• Feelings and Emotions