Telling the time in Konkani

(updated )

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To tell the time to the nearest five minutes – usually close enough – you can use the following simple steps.

Memorise some numbers

You just need to memorise the numbers for the hours and the minutes in multiples of five up to thirty. Here they are, just sixteen numbers:

Hour Konkani Hour Konkani Minutes Konkani
1 ayka 1 7 saata 5 paantsa
2 doni 8 aaTha 10 dhaa
3 teeni 9 navva 15 pandraa
4 caari 10 dhaa 20 veesa
5 paantsa 11 ikraa 25 pancveesa
6 sa 12 baaraa 30 teesa

You use the words ghanTaw to mean hour (plural: ghanTA ) and minuTa for minute (plural: minuTanh ). The hours can be inferred from context and don’t need to be said in most cases; the 12-hour clock is used, and whether a.m. or p.m. is meant is also generally determined from context.

Work out what you want to say

For a time HH:MM, which you've rounded to the nearest five minutes: if MM is less than or equal to thirty, use the form HH hours and MM minutes; otherwise, use the form (60 - MM) minutes to (HH + 1). Then use the following table to see how the and and to forms are constructed.

Hour and form to form Hour and form to form
1 ayka zaaunu ekkaaka 7 saata zaaunu saattaanka
2 doni zaaunu donneenka 8 aaTha zaaunu aaThThaanka
3 teeni zaaunu tinneenka 9 navva zaaunu navvaanka
4 caari zaaunu caarreenka 10 dhaa zaaunu dhaanka
5 paantsa zaaunu paantsaanka 11 ikraa zaaunu ikraanka
6 sa zaaunu sa-anka 12 baaraa zaaunu baaraanka

Then, just substitute the values in the table above for the actual time to be described, as in the following examples.

Time

Simplest Konkani answer to what time is it? – kitlA ghanTA zaallA?

09:00

navva

09:10

navva zaaunu dhaa minuTanh

09:20

navva zaaunu veesa minuTanh

09:40

dhaanka veesa minuTanh

21:50

dhaanka dhaa minuTanh

10:00

dhaa

22:40

ikraanka veesa minuTanh

11:50

baaraanka dhaa minuTanh

Special cases

If the time is a quarter past, half past or quarter to something, then use the terms savaai , saaDay , paauNay or paauaN like this:

  • Quarter past X savaai X

  • Half past X saaDay X

  • Quarter to X paauNay X or paauaN X

The following examples should help.

Time

How to say it

09:15

savaai navva

09:30

saaDay navva

09:45

paauNay dhaa or paauaN dhaa

15:45

paauNay caari or paauaN caari

00:00

madraati

When you have to spell it out

The following table shows examples of how to specify a day and time, spelling it out a bit more.

Question

Example answers

aammi kednaa meLcAnh? (When do we meet?)

hA aaitaaraa ikraa ghanTAri. (this Sunday at 11:00.) or hA aaitaaraa raatti ikraa ghanTAri. (this Sunday at 23:00.) raatti means at night.

Trayna kitlA ghanTAri suTtaa? (At what time does the train leave?)

baara ghanTAri. (At noon.) or madraatti. (At midnight.). Note: madraati means midnight, and madraatti means at midnight. Note the extended t consonant!

tukkaa kitlA ghanTAri appouncaaka yeuncAnh? (What time shall I come to fetch you?)

phaalphaalAri savaai caareenka. (at 04:15 - in the early morning.) or dhonpaaraa savaai caareenka. (at 16:15 - in the afternoon.)

narssari kednaa banda zaattaa? (When does the nursery close?)

saaDay paantsaanka. (at 17:30.) Based on context, it's very unlikely to be at 05:30!

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