Numbers, dates, time and age

What you’ll learn

• Use common numbers in personal information.
• Tell the time with es la or son las.
• Give dates with day, month and year.

Numbers in useful information

Start with cero, uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve and diez, then learn once through quince and the combinations dieciséis through diecinueve. Veinte begins the twenties: veintiuno, veintidós and so on. From treinta onward, connect tens and units with y: treinta y cuatro. Written accents remain part of the spelling.

Use tener with an age: Tengo treinta años. Uno shortens before a masculine noun: un libro, veintiún años. With a feminine noun, use una: una mesa. Read numbers in context, such as an address, age or opening time, so that you practise meaning as well as pronunciation.

Time and dates

Ask ¿Qué hora es? Say Es la una for one o'clock and Son las dos, tres and so on for other hours. Media means half past and cuarto means a quarter. To say when something happens, use a la una or a las dos. Distinguish the current time from the time of an appointment.

A common written date order is day, month, year: el ocho de septiembre de dos mil veintiséis. Months and weekdays normally use lowercase letters. For the first day of a month, you may hear el uno or el primero depending on region. A weekday with el can locate one occurrence; los lunes describes a repeated Monday routine.

Useful vocabulary

y media

half past

y cuarto

a quarter past

el lunes

Monday / on Monday

Common mistakes

• Use tener for age and ser for the current time.
• Son las tres tells the time; a las tres says when something happens.
• Weekdays and months normally begin with lowercase letters in Spanish.

Keep these ideas

• Connect numbers to an age, quantity or schedule.
• Use es la una and son las for other hours.
• Dates commonly follow day–month–year order.

Use it in your life

Give one story character an age and write a two-event schedule for their day, with explicit times.

Read it in context

Look for this lesson’s ideas in a complete Spanish story. Read the passage first, then use its translations to check your understanding.