Telling time in Hebrew might not be something we all need. But once you learn how to tell time in Hebrew, it will be much fun to use with your Israeli, Jewish or Hebrew-speaking friends.
Let me first start with the most fundamental question…
“what is the time?” in Hebrew!
You can’t usually ask “what is the time” in Hebrew, you would be literally asking is “what’s the hour” instead. This is how you would ask it:
מה השעה? – Ma hasha’a?
Let’s break it down…
What in Hebrew is “ma” : מה
“The” in Hebrew is “ha” : ה
Hour in Hebrew is “sha’a”: שָׁעָה
Together that would be “ma hasha’a?”… Easy, right? Let’s move on…
Telling Time in Hebrew
Answering the what’s-the-time question
When someone asks you “ma hasha’a?” or what’s the hour as we agreed above, you would usually answer saying “the hour is…” which in Hebrew would be
Then you just put the time you want. For example if we want to say “it’s nine o’clock” we would say
השעה תשע – hasha’a tesha
Means “the hour (is) nine”. As you might know or have noticed the word “is” is omitted in Hebrew. We literally say “the hour nine”. Means It’s nine o’clock.
Here are the words you would need to learn when you ask or tell time in Hebrew…
Hebrew Word for Time
The word “time” itself in Hebrew is Zman written and pronounced like this:
Hebrew Word for Minute
That is “daka”, spelled and pronounced this way:
You’d usually hear it in plural, that would be “dakot”