bitful

Di solito esco di casa alle sette e mezza.
I usually leave home at half past seven.
Literally: 'Of usual (I) go-out of house/home at-the seven and half'.

Morning transport is bad, but I found that I can shave off 20 minutes from my commute - and have enough room in the train to hold my book open - if I leave ten minutes earlier.

Unfortunately it seems that yesterday everybody else had the same idea, and that altered my mood from bad to superbad.

I can't afford to have two superbad days in a row, so today I am starting my journey at seven to beat the crowds.

Oggi esco mezz'ora prima.
Today I'm leaving half an hour earlier.
Literally: 'Today (I) go-out half'hour before'.

If you want to find out more

When you tell the time, you must put an article ('the') before the number, which I agree is rather odd. I think what is implied is the word 'ore' (hours).

The full translation of 'It is seven o'clock' (now only used for very formal announcements) would be:

Sono le ore sette
(They) are the hours seven

'Ore' is usually dropped, but its article ('le') remains.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 6:54 am and last modified on January 30th, 2008 at 8:30 am, and is filed under italian. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.