Telling time in Holland
A short note on time keeping in Holland. I knew I’d have learn to translate words from Dutch, but did not realize I’d have to do that with the time as well. The time here is displayed in “military time”, so 4:30 PM is actually 16:30. It does avoid confusion, but I’m always having to calculate how many hours after noon it is. This is especailly important for Law and Order re-runs, oh and for catching the train too.
I think the Dutch math teachers had a hand in deciding how Dutch tell time…I get a lot of practice with all my numbers. Some of it is pretty straight forward: 5:15 is “quarter over five”, and 5:45 is “quarter before five”….but the math professor influence comes in when you want to say “5:20”…3 guesses how they do it…of course you guessed correctly you would say “Ten Minutes Before Half-Until Six”…yup, that was my first guess to. Practice saying that ten times fast! Maybe I’ll just make a new rule that all things time related are in the first or last 15 minutes of the hour.
Well, I promise, pictures coming soon….of my house and England vacation, and all the others. Please post comments too on how you enjoy my sparkling wit, that “if you think that’s something to write about, have I got one for you”, or just to say Hi.
No comments:
Post a Comment