I read this phrase in a Russian book: "Сколько время?" Is this correct? I thought it was "Сколько времени?".
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5 Answers
"Сколько время" is grammatically incorrect, but this is indeed the way some people speak. This is kind of an elision, when people don't pronounce words fully. You can also hear it pronounced something like "скоко времи". However, this is a spoken phenomenon for the most part; it's strange to see it in print.
BTW, even "сколько времени" is considered incorrect because время is uncountable. But in modern usage, "сколько времени" is a de facto standard.
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1время is measurable, it just doesn't have a fixed point of reference. Сколько времени is perfectly valid to define intervals (сколько времени нужно, чтобы сварить яйцо всмятку?), but, strictly speaking, not a point in time, as you correctly mentioned.– Quassnoi ♦Commented Jul 20, 2023 at 13:18
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In Russian language сколько is used with both countable and uncountable nouns. Сколько времени, сколько яиц, сколько денег, сколько варенья, сколько бутылок - anything goes and is correct. Commented Jul 22, 2023 at 12:50
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@SergZ.: I think the word the op was looking for was "measurable"– Quassnoi ♦Commented Jul 22, 2023 at 16:01
You may come across an even shorter version: скок время? Which is very colloquial, but not uncommon.
These phrases aren't totally correct from a strictly literary point of view, but in everyday conversations they're used all the time and feel just like normal conversational Russian. They don't sound wrong or out of place to native Russian speakers, especially сколько время?.
"Сколько время?", или ещё более разговорная форма "Скок/скока время?", это крайне распространенные формы вопроса "Сколько времени?". Данные варианты используется людьми повсеместно в разговорной речи.
В письменной форме общения, желательно писать литературную форму - "Сколько времени?"
It would be more accurate to ask "который час". I usually use this wording to avoid accidentally mistaking "сколько время или времени".
A native speaker would never ask another native speaker "Сколько времени?" That's the sign of a foreigner or a super formal setting. But it's usually prefaced by "Простите, не подскажете пожалуйста, сколько времени?"
In normal day-to-day life, "сколько/скоко время?", "какой/который час?" is the norm.
