How to Tell the Time in Luxembourgish – A1

IN Level A1

In this lesson you will learn how to tell the time in Luxembourgish. Telling the time in Luxembourgish requires knowing three basic ingredients: the numbers from 1 to 12, the words for ‘to‘ and ‘after,’ and the fractions ‘quarter‘ and ‘half‘ (past).

By the way if you want to know the different meanings of the word time in Luxembourgish you may read this lesson where I have tackled a few problems students often get wrong when trying to talk about the time in Luxembourgish.

Let’s start!

Wéi vill Auer ass et?

To ask somebody What time is it? you can say:

Wéi vill Auer ass et? – What time is it?

Wéi vill literally means how much or how many and Auer means time or clock.

To ask more politely you can say:

Entschëllegt, wéi vill Auer ass et? – Excuse me, what time is it?
Wéi vill Auer ass et, wannechgelift? – What time is it, please?

Another phrase you might hear is:

Wéi spéit ass et? – How late is it?

To answer that question you can say:

Et ass dräi Auer. – It is three o’clock.

To say it is ten minutes past seven (7.10) is et ass zéng op siwen. Literally this is “it is 10 past seven”. The same as in English → you start with the minutes then you add past which is op and then you say the clock → Et ass zéng op siwen.

7.15 → Et ass Véierel op siwen. – It is quarter past seven.

Véierel is quarter and quarter past is Véierel op and quarter to is Véierel vir. So:

6.45 → Et ass Véierel vir siwen. – It is quarter to seven

Now to say it is half past seven, is a little bit different in Luxembourgish. The word for half is hallwer, BUT we say it is half to the next hour. So to say it is half past seven (7.30) you would say:

7.30 → Et ass hallwer aacht. – It is half past seven.

You will have noticed that we only say Auer when it is the full time, for example, it is six o’clock is et ass 6 Auer. But if you want to say it is quarter past six you would simply say et ass Véierel op sechs and not Véierel op sechs Auer.

Et ass zwou Auer

Let’s look at a tricky grammar point when saying the time in Luxembourgish: you may know that the numbers one so een and two zwee and that they change their form when followed by a noun. The form they take depends on the gender of the noun that follows:

We say ee(n) Jong but eng Duechter and zwee Jongen but zwou Duechteren. Now knowing that Auer is a feminine noun, you must say:

13.00 → eng Auer – one o’clock

14.00 → zwou Auer – two o’clock

13.30 → hallwer zwou. – half past one.

Hints to understand natural spoken Luxembourgish

Véierel op are two words but in spoken Luxembourgish they are pronounced as if it was only one word → Véierelop. So for quarter past eight you would hear Véierelop aacht.
Another detail regarding the spoken language: it is is et ass in written Luxembourgish. But in spoken Luxembourgish you won’t say et ass but ’t ass. It is 6 o’clock sounds like ’t ass 6 Auer.