Hungarian clock time has two complementary architectures. Exact and timetable styles state the hour and minutes directly, while ordinary conversation divides the interval leading up to the coming hour into negyed “quarter,” fél “half,” and háromnegyed “three quarters.” A point when something happens can take temporal -kor, an invariant suffix that never changes for vowel harmony. The clock usage page develops the conversational settings behind these forms.
Asking for and stating the time
Hány óra van? asks “What time is it?” Literally, it asks how many hours there are. An exact-hour answer uses number + singular óra + van.
Hány óra van? — Pontosan három óra van.
What time is it? — It is exactly three o'clock.
Már hét óra van, indulnunk kell.
It is already seven o'clock; we need to leave.
After any numeral, óra remains singular: két óra, not két órák. The special form két appears before a noun, so “It is two o'clock” is Két óra van. When the number stands alone, Hungarian uses kettő: Mennyi az idő? — Kettő.
In ordinary twelve-hour speech, an hour number alone may be ambiguous between morning and evening. Hungarian adds a day-part word rather than an English-style a.m. or p.m. phrase: reggel hét, délelőtt tíz, délután három, este nyolc. These elements stand before the clock expression, and -kor still attaches at its end: reggel hétkor, délután fél négykor.
Holnap reggel hétkor nyit a pékség.
Tomorrow the bakery opens at seven in the morning.
Dél “noon” and éjfél “midnight” also form point-time expressions, but their conventional cases differ: neutral speech strongly favors délben “at noon” and éjfélkor “at midnight.” Learners should treat these as lexical time expressions, not force both into an identical paradigm.
Délben ebédelek, éjfélkor pedig már alszom.
I have lunch at noon, and by midnight I am already asleep.
The coming-hour system
The conversational system names how far the current hour has progressed toward the next whole hour. Therefore every quarter expression uses the coming hour:
| Time | Hungarian form | Literal organization |
|---|---|---|
| 2:00 | két óra | two o'clock |
| 2:15 | negyed három | a quarter of the way toward three |
| 2:30 | fél három | halfway toward three |
| 2:45 | háromnegyed három | three quarters of the way toward three |
| 3:00 | három óra | three o'clock |
Negyed három van, és a film fél háromkor kezdődik.
It is 2:15, and the film starts at 2:30.
Háromnegyed három van; negyedóra múlva zár a pénztár.
It is 2:45; the ticket office closes in a quarter of an hour.
English speakers must resist translating the named hour. Fél három is not 3:30; it is 2:30, because three is the destination of the current hour. Negyed három and háromnegyed három use the same orientation.
Temporal -kor marks a point
Add -kor to say “at” a time: hatkor “at six,” fél háromkor “at 2:30,” nyolc órakor “at eight o'clock.” Unlike most Hungarian suffixes, temporal -kor is completely invariant. It remains -kor after front- and back-vowel stems alike.
| Base | Point-time form | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| öt | ötkor | at five |
| hat | hatkor | at six |
| kettő | kettőkor | at two |
| két óra | két órakor | at two o'clock |
| fél három | fél háromkor | at 2:30 |
Ötkor találkozunk a könyvtár előtt.
We are meeting in front of the library at five.
Az előadás nyolc órakor kezdődik.
The performance begins at eight o'clock.
Fél háromkor hívlak, amikor véget ér a megbeszélésem.
I'll call you at 2:30, when my meeting ends.
There is no harmonic variant -ker or -kör. Ötkor, despite the front rounded ö, has the same suffix vowel as hatkor. No linking vowel appears, and the number stem does not change: hétkor, not hetkor.
Clock point versus duration
The same vocabulary can denote a clock reading or an amount of elapsed time. The morphology reveals which one is intended.
| Meaning | Hungarian form | Example value |
|---|---|---|
| time on the clock | két óra van | it is 2:00 |
| point when an event occurs | két órakor / kettőkor | at 2:00 |
| duration | két órát | for two hours |
| time remaining | két óra múlva | in two hours |
Kettőkor indulunk, és két órát utazunk.
We leave at two and travel for two hours.
A szerelő két óra múlva érkezik.
The repair technician will arrive in two hours.
In két órát, accusative -t marks a measured duration with verbs such as vár “wait” or utazik “travel.” Két órakor instead locates an event at one clock point. Both contain singular óra after két.
The same contrast applies to quarter forms: fél háromkor means “at 2:30,” whereas fél órát means “for half an hour.” Negyed háromkor is 2:15; negyed órát is fifteen minutes of duration.
Minute expressions
Minutes can be measured from the preceding hour or from a quarter-hour landmark. Perccel múlt means “has passed by ... minutes”; perc múlva means that the named landmark will arrive after that many minutes.
| Time | Conversational form | Reference point |
|---|---|---|
| 2:05 | öt perccel múlt kettő | five minutes past two |
| 2:20 | öt perccel múlt negyed három | five minutes past 2:15 |
| 2:25 | öt perc múlva fél három | five minutes until 2:30 |
| 2:35 | öt perccel múlt fél három | five minutes past 2:30 |
| 2:40 | öt perc múlva háromnegyed három | five minutes until 2:45 |
| 2:55 | öt perc múlva három | five minutes until three |
Öt perc múlva fél nyolc, de a busz még sehol sincs.
It is five minutes to 7:30, but the bus is still nowhere in sight.
These forms are productive but cognitively demanding. There is no honest shortcut: learners must practice identifying both the quarter landmark and the coming hour.
Timetable and digital forms
Schedules normally use the 24-hour clock: 14:35, 18:10, 22:05. Standard Hungarian notation permits either a colon or a point between hours and minutes, with no spaces: 14:35 or 14.35. When -kor follows a digit expression, attach it with a hyphen to the entire time: 14:35-kor or 14.35-kor.
A 14:35-kor induló vonat a hatodik vágányról megy.
The train departing at 14:35 leaves from platform six.
In expanded formal prose, the same point can be 14 óra 35 perckor. Each quantified unit noun stays singular: tizennégy óra, harmincöt perc. In ordinary conversation, háromnegyed háromkor is often more natural for 14:45 once the part of the day is clear.
Segmentation exercise
Segment these forms and identify the relation.
- hat-kor: cardinal hat
- invariant temporal -kor → “at six.”
- két óra-kor: attributive két
- singular óra
- -kor → “at two o'clock.”
- singular óra
- fél három-kor: half-way expression oriented to coming három
- -kor → “at 2:30.”
- 14:35-kor: numeric clock expression + hyphenated -kor → “at 14:35.”
Do not segment háromnegyed as a freely spaced phrase in clock time. It is written together before the coming hour: háromnegyed öt “4:45.”
This spelling contrasts with the separate hour word throughout the series: negyed öt, fél öt, háromnegyed öt. If -kor marks the event time, it appears only once, on the final hour element: negyed ötkor, fél ötkor, háromnegyed ötkor. Forms such as negyedkor ötkor incorrectly mark two pieces as separate points.
Common Mistakes
❌ Fél kettőkor találkozunk.
Incorrect for the intended 2:30 — fél kettő means 1:30.
✅ Fél háromkor találkozunk.
We are meeting at 2:30.
❌ Ötkör indul a busz.
Incorrect — temporal -kor is invariant and does not harmonize after ö.
✅ Ötkor indul a busz.
The bus leaves at five.
❌ Két órákor kezdődik az óra.
Incorrect — óra remains singular after két, and -kor attaches directly.
✅ Két órakor kezdődik az óra.
The class begins at two o'clock.
❌ Kettő órát vártunk.
Incorrect before a noun — use the attributive form két.
✅ Két órát vártunk.
We waited for two hours.
Key Takeaways
- Negyed, fél, háromnegyed name progress toward the coming hour: fél három is 2:30.
- Temporal -kor marks a point in time and is invariant: ötkor, hatkor, fél háromkor.
- Kettőkor has a standalone numeral, while két órakor uses két before singular óra.
- Point time (két órakor) and duration (két órát) require different morphology.
- Formal schedules use forms such as 14:35 and 14:35-kor; quantified unit nouns remain singular.
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Start learning Hungarian →Related Topics
- Clock Time: Meanings and UsageA1 — Use Hungarian clock expressions to state the time, schedule events, distinguish points from durations, and choose conversational or timetable style.
- Clock Time: Contrasts and Learner TrapsA2 — Choose among Hungarian clock readings, point-time -kor forms, durations, relative times, approximations, and timetable expressions.
- Cardinal Numbers and Compound Formation: Forms and Core PatternA1 — Build and spell Hungarian cardinal numbers while keeping quantified nouns singular and handling the special forms of two.
- Dates, Years, Ages, and Centuries: Forms and Core PatternA2 — Form standard Hungarian dates, inflected calendar expressions, ages, decades, and centuries in the order Hungarian expects.
- Temporal Postpositions: Forms and Core PatternA2 — Build Hungarian time relations with előtt, után, óta, fogva, keresztül, personal forms, temporal cases, and appropriate tense choices.