I need you expertise opinion on this. when someone asks me what time it is and I want to say, the time is...do I start with "время" and the time or can I say "время ect"?
4 Answers
In common speech, no one uses время in their answers:
Который час?
Полпятого.
Obviously, there are some variants:
Сейчас четырнадцать тридцать.
Почти пять.
And so on. Время might be used in technical speech, announcements etc.
Московское время - пятнадцать часов.
Текущее время - одиннадцать часов тринадцать минут.
As you see, the verb быть is not used.
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Actually, 'время' may be used in the colloquial question 'Сколько времени?' One can even sometimes hear 'Сколько время?', though that's ungrammatical.– achCommented Oct 22, 2015 at 18:21
I think you could begin with время. In my opinion though it sounds better with the word сейчас, for example Сейчас половина четвёртого. The other common approach would be to say the time directly without any pretext
- Который час?
- Пять минут шестого.
If you announcing the time by your own initiative, you can use "время" to clarify that you are announcing time rather than some other numbers. But if you asked it would be excessive.
Sounds well in Russian: - What time is it? - Six o'clock. Sounds a bit polished in Russian: - What time is it? - It is six o'clock now.
But both variants are appropriate in English.
So, the answer is: - Сколько времени? - Шесть часов.
