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The French phrase "Il est quelle heure"

Get ready to learn all the things you ever wanted to know about the basic French sentence "Il est quelle heure ?". It includes a full definition of what it is and how you can use it in a casual conversation with an audio example. But that's not all, we also added some useful things like slow pronunciation audio, synonym, dialogue example and more!


French to English

  • Translation : What time is it?

  • Register : Neutral - Basic

How to pronounce it?

Slow

Normal

  • IPA : / il ɛ kɛl œʁ ? /

aesthetic french quote il est quelle heure

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What does it mean?

Definition

It's the common and neutral way to ask someone "What time is it?". Some variations such as "Quelle heure est-il ?" and "Quelle heure il est ?" works too and are frequently used, so don't be surprised if you hear them!

Don't hesitate to check the "Synonyms" section below for more variations (familiar, formal, plural...)

How to use it

In case you want to ask someone the time in French, simply use: "Il est quelle heure ?" and they will tell you the time.

If you want to be more polite, you use instead: "Il est quelle heure s'il te plaît ?" (What time is it please?). Or even "Il est quelle heure s'il vous plaît ?" which is even more formal and also works if you are asking a group of people.

Pro tips: "S'il te plaît" is long and complicated for beginners sometimes, so if you are texting: you can use the short version "stp" instead. ( S-'il T-e P-lait)

Synonyms

↓ Example in a story with translation ↓

Finally, let's see an example in a parallel story with slow audio.

Dire l'heure en Français

Telling the time in French

Tout d'abord, nous utilisons en général le format 24 heures...
First of all, we generally use the 24 hours format...
Donc, si quelqu'un demande : "Il est quelle heure ?"
So if someone asks, "What time is it?"
Et qu'il est 13h. Vous devez dire :
And that it's 1:00 p.m. You must say:
Il est treize heures
It's thirteen hours (1:00 p.m.)
Pour dire l'heure exacte, il vous suffit d'ajouter le nombre de minutes.
To tell the exact time, just add the number of minutes.
Par exemple : "Il est treize heures quarante-deux"
For example: "It's thirteen forty-two" (1:42 p.m.)
Si vous voulez utiliser la demi-heure, il faut dire :
If you want to use the half hour, you must say:

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