# Times of the day



## Tatzingo

Hello people!

I'm opening this thread after having searched through past threads and not having found anything on the topic.

After recently speaking to some friends in Spain, I learn't that they interpret the morning/afternoon/evening/night times differently.

Although we have "equivalent" words;

Mañana - Morning
Mediodia - Midday
Tarde - Afternoon/Evening
Noche - Night

The hours that we attribute to each one don't coincide...

For instance, I understand "morning" to be anything from about 6am to 12pm. 12pm exactly is midday. However, mañana is often used to denote anything up until about 2pm in Spain and furthermore, some would deem "mediodia" to be from about 12pm -2pm....

What do people understand by the terms "morning/mañana" "tarde/afternoon" (le matin, apres-midi, morgan, mattina...) etc and which hours do they corrrespond to?? And in your countries? 


This is a question open to everyone from all countries US, French, UK, Spanish, Italian, German.. to name but a few. 

Looking forward to your answers.

Tatz.


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## Outsider

One thing that differs between Portugal (and, I guess, Spain) and the U.K. is that for us the _tarde_ ends at sunset. In English, the "evening" includes part of what we call the "night".

As I recall, French is like English: the _soir_ includes the start of our "night". Or, to put it in another way, for us the "evening" is made up of the end of the _tarde_ and the start of the "night". We actually greet each other saying "Good night", which you don't do in English or French.

On the other hand, for us the morning ends at midday as well, and midday is from 12 o'clock to 1 p.m. (or, strictly speaking, at 12:00 exactly).


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## Miguelillo 87

Well in Mexico it seems is the same that in England.

Morning.- La mañana: 5 or 6 untill 11:59

Midday.- Mediodía: 12:00 maybe 12:01,02,03 even 04
Afternoon.- Tarde: 12:05 untill 18 or 19 
Night.- Noche: 19 untill 23:00 and something 
Midnight.- 23:50 untill 00:00 For my mon even 11:30 it's midnight (I cannot go to late parties, no, Yes i can)

Madrugada (I don't know how to say it in English) 00:01 to 5.00


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## pedro0001

mmm I'm not completely sure but approximately, here in Germany it is so:

Morgen - Morning: 5:00 11:30
Mittag - Midday 11:30 12:30
Nachmitag - Afternoon 12:30 - 16:00
Abend - 16:00 - 21:00
Nacht -  21:00 5:00

Maybe some native german can be more precise and correct this.


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## Hakro

In Finland these times may vary a lot depending on the person who's speaking, and it seems that we have divided the 24 hour in more parts than in other languages:

Morning - aamu 5:00-9.00
- aamupäivä 9:00-12:00
Midday - keskipäivä 12:00
Afternoon - iltapäivä 12:00-17:00
Evening - ilta 17:00-23:00
- iltayö 22:00-24:00
Night - yö 22:00-6:00
Midnight - keskiyö 24:00
- aamuyö 24:00-6:00

As you can see, we have not only Afternoon but also Beforenoon, Beforemidnight and Aftermidnight in general use.


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## panjandrum

Morning = from waking up until lunchtime - which may be anything from 12:00 to 14:00.

Afternoon = from lunchtime until evening mealtime - which is usually sometime from 17:30 to 19:00.

Evening = from evening mealtime until it gets dark.

Night = from the time it gets dark until waking up time next day.


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## geve

It seems to me that morning, afternoon, evening and night don't "happen" at specific times... For me _le matin_/morning lasts until I have lunch (Sunday mornings can last forever), then it's _l'après-midi_/afternoon, and _le soir_/evening starts when you're done with what keeps you busy most of the day (work, school, shopping, sport, whatever).
_La nuit/_night is when you start feeling somewhat guilty to be still up.


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## Brioche

pedro0001 said:


> mmm I'm not completely sure but approximately, here in Germany it is so:
> 
> Morgen - Morning: 5:00 11:30
> Mittag - Midday 11:30 12:30
> Nachmitag - Afternoon 12:30 - 16:00
> Abend - 16:00 - 21:00
> Nacht - 21:00 5:00
> 
> Maybe some native german can be more precise and correct this.


 
I'm no native, but Germans can use Nacht to mean what in English is called early morning; so _in der Nacht zu Montag_ means the hours of darkness prior to sunrise on Monday morning.


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## Daddyo

I remember seeing a thread about this in one of the Spanish forums. Probably in the General Vocabulary. If I come across it again, I'll post it.


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## natasha2000

In Serbian, parts of a day are more similar to English than to Spanish, so I had some problems to get used to it, just like you, Tatz...

*Jutro* - Morning - when you wake up until 12am
*Podne* - Noon - 12pm
*Posle podne* or *popodne *- afternoon - 12 - 6/7pm
*Veče *- evening - 20-9/11pm (depends on how late you are going to bed)
*Noć* - night - after 10/11pm
*Ponoć* - midnight - 12pm
*Zora* - dusk - 12pm - 4-5am (until the moment when the sun rises in the summer, but in winter it's until some 4-5am, considering that in winter the sun rises sometimes at 7 or 8am), but it is also said - at 3-4 in the morning (*3 sata* *ujutro*)) *Zora* is used more when speaking more generally, without specifying the exact hour. For example: _He called early in the morning_ - Zvao je u ranu *zoru*. (Meaning he called at some huour between 3-6 in the morning...)

In Serbian, *dobro veče* means good evening, and you say it when you come to some place, not when you are leaving. When you leave (or go to bed), you say *laku noć* - good night. You will never say *dobro veče* if you are going to bed. Sounds stupid.

On the other hand, Spaniards have only _buenas noches_ both for _good evening_ and _good night_... A little bit confusing, at least for me, when someone says _buenas noches_ when arriving to/entering some place... I always think he wants to go to bed...


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## asm

En el espanol que yo conozco _manana_ (sorry no tengo tildes) es a partir de la media noche y hasta el medio dia. Si una fiesta dura de las 11 pm hasta las 3 am, la gente dirA que salieron a las tres de la manana.

Algo curioso es que nadie ha mencionado la duracion del dia/noche como factor. EN Europa, EUA y Canada la duracion del dia y de la noche cambia mucho durante el aNio, tanto a veces que ya parece transparente y no se ve. En los paises que estan entre los tropicos las variaciones son mucho menores y hay mucho menos complejidad en los tiempos en los que el sol se oculta o cuando es el amanecer. Me imagino que este punto tiene algo que ver en cuanto a la percepcion del dia/tarde/noche.




Outsider said:


> One thing that differs between Portugal (and, I guess, Spain) and the U.K. is that for us the _tarde_ ends at sunset. In English, the "evening" includes part of what we call the "night".
> 
> As I recall, French is like English: the _soir_ includes the start of our "night". Or, to put it in another way, for us the "evening" is made up of the end of the _tarde_ and the start of the "night". We actually greet each other saying "Good night", which you don't do in English or French.
> 
> On the other hand, for us the morning ends at midday as well, and midday is from 12 o'clock to 1 p.m. (or, strictly speaking, at 12:00 exactly).


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## Tatzingo

Thanks to everyone who has replied. Maybe they should be teaching that in language classes too!!

Gracias a todos.

Tatz.


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## aslan

Morning = Sabah (from waking up to 12:00 )
noon, Midday;Öğle
Afternoon =Öğleden sonra (from noon to midafternoon),,, By the way here in Turkey It is quite common to use midafternoon (İkindi) (from 15,00 until getting dark) 
Evening = Akşam.
Night = Gece


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## maxiogee

Outsider said:


> On the other hand,



Is that "the big hand" or "the little hand"?


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## Outsider

Tatzingo said:


> Thanks to everyone who has replied. Maybe they should be teaching that in language classes too!!


I learnt about the the difference between "afternoon", "evening", and "night" in English classes. You have to at least teach your students not to say "Good night" instead of "Good evening", as we would be tempted to do around here.



maxiogee said:


> Is that "the big hand" or "the little hand"?


There must be a joke in there somewhere, but I fear it got lost in translation...


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## cirrus

I crashed right into the difference between different interpretations of la tarde when I went from Spain to Colombia.  La tarde colombiana goes from 12 - 6. After that, it is the noche.  Even now, I am a hundred percent certain what Spaniards mean when they say a la última hora de la tarde.  Does it mean 7, 8, 9 or 10? 

An English time period we have missed out is the wee hours - this is the time when everyone who can be is in bed.  This goes from around 2 in the morning to around 5.  This is the time that the highest proportion of accidents happen on the roads, most babies seem to be born or, come to think of it, most people die.


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## Aliena

En España yo creo que no hay horas definidas, sino que depende de las costumbres de cada uno. Por fijar un poco las horas, diré que:

- Desde que me levanto hasta que como: "mañana" (de 7 a 14:00)
- Dentro del concepto de "mañana" para mí está incluído el "mediodía", que digamos que para mí es de de 12 a 15:00
- Desde que como hasta que anochece o ceno es la "tarde" (de 15:00 a 21:30)
- Despues de la cena y hasta que sale el sol es la "noche"

Si decimos a última hora de la tarde nos referimos a eso de las 8 o 8:30

Lo que comentaba alguien más arriba de que cuando salimos por la noche y regresamos a casa a las 3 am le llamamos "3 de la mañana" es cierto, pero es para distinguirlo de las 3 pm "3 de la tarde", no porque a esas horas digamos que es "mañana" (la verdad es que ahora q lo pienso es algo confuso.. tendríamos que decir "3 de la noche"... cosas del español!)

Espero haberme explicado bien...


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## maxiogee

maxiogee said:


> Is that "the big hand" or "the little hand"?





Outsider said:


> There must be a joke in there somewhere, but I fear it got lost in translation...



When children (at least those in Ireland and England) are learning to tell the time with a good old-fashioned clock, they speak of "the big hand" and "the little hand".

Jokes always fall flat when you have to explain them.


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## pedro0001

En el interior de la Argentina se suele usar también "tardecita" para referirse a la tarde temprana, es decir aproximadamente entre las 13:30 y 15:30 horas.


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## Outsider

maxiogee said:


>


It still made me smile.


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## caravaggio

jajaj que confusion:

Bueno en Peru

Mañana: 07-12 am
Medio dia: alrededor de las 12
Tarde: empiezo a pensar a partir de las 2 hasta las 6 o 6 y 30 siempre hay sol.
Noche: cuando se oculta el sol a partir de las 6 o 7 depende de la estación hasta media noche.

MADRUGADA a partir de media noche hasta que amanece de nuevo, buena hora para un caldito de gallina.


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## argosdex

After recently having moved to Louisiana it seems that the times are day, night, sometime and tomorrow. Times? What times? It's in a little bit, some time ago, later on, a while back and the other day (this apparently can mean anything from a few days ago to last year).


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## cirrus

argosdex said:


> Times? What times? It's in a little bit, some time ago, later on, a while back and the other day (this apparently can mean anything from a few days ago to last year).



I caught myself saying t'other day and realised I meant sometime in the 90s.   When something is really vivid in your mind time somehow doesn't lose its freshness.  Is this incipient Alzheimers?  Eek!!


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