Dates and clock times are the most frequent place beginners use numbers, and Brazilian Portuguese has a handful of conventions that don't match English at all: days of the month are cardinals (except the 1st, which is the ordinal primeiro), month names are lowercase, and telling time uses the verb ser agreeing with the hour (é uma hora but são duas horas). Get these patterns down and you can make appointments, read calendars, and catch a bus. This builds on cardinal numbers.
Dates: cardinals, except the first
To say a calendar day, use a cardinal number — dois, três, quinze, vinte e cinco. The one exception is the 1st of the month, which uses the ordinal primeiro.
- 1º de maio → primeiro de maio (the first of May)
- 2 de maio → dois de maio
- 15 de março → quinze de março
This is the reverse of English, which uses ordinals for every day (the second, the fifteenth). Portuguese uses ordinals for only the first.
O feriado cai no dia primeiro de maio.
The holiday falls on the first of May.
A reunião ficou marcada para vinte e cinco de março.
The meeting was set for the twenty-fifth of March.
The parts of a date are linked with de (of): day *de month de year. Full dates read: *quinze de março de dois mil e vinte e cinco (15 March 2025).
Ela nasceu em três de dezembro de mil novecentos e noventa.
She was born on the third of December, nineteen ninety.
Months are written in lowercase in Portuguese — janeiro, fevereiro, março, abril, maio, junho, julho, agosto, setembro, outubro, novembro, dezembro — unlike English, which capitalizes them. The same goes for days of the week (segunda-feira, terça-feira).
Vou viajar em julho, quando as crianças estão de férias.
I'm going to travel in July, when the kids are on vacation.
Asking and telling the time
The question is Que horas são? — literally "What hours are they?" — using the plural because horas is plural. To answer, you use ser, and here is the crucial point: the verb agrees with the number of hours.
- É uma hora. — It's one o'clock. (singular, because "one")
- São duas horas. — It's two o'clock. (plural, from two onward)
- São três horas, são dez horas... — and so on.
| Time | Portuguese |
|---|---|
| 1:00 | É uma hora. |
| 2:00 | São duas horas. |
| 3:00 | São três horas. |
| 12:00 (noon) | É meio-dia. |
| 00:00 (midnight) | É meia-noite. |
Note that uma and duas are feminine here, because they agree with the implied feminine noun hora(s).
— Que horas são? — São quase três horas.
— What time is it? — It's almost three o'clock.
É uma hora da tarde, hora do almoço.
It's one in the afternoon, lunchtime.
Minutes: "e" for past, "para as" for before
To add minutes past the hour, use e (and): duas e quinze (2:15), duas e quarenta e cinco (2:45). To express minutes before the next hour, use para as (to/before): quinze para as três (a quarter to three).
- 2:15 → duas e quinze
- 2:30 → duas e meia (meia = half/thirty)
- 2:45 → duas e quarenta e cinco or quinze para as três
- 2:50 → dez para as três
The word meia (literally "half") is used for 30 minutes: seis e meia (6:30), sete e meia (7:30). It's feminine because, again, it agrees with the silent hora. Don't confuse it with meio-dia (noon).
A gente combina às seis e meia, então?
So we're meeting at six thirty, then?
O filme começa às quinze para as oito.
The movie starts at a quarter to eight.
Já são vinte para as dez, vou ter que correr.
It's already twenty to ten, I'm going to have to run.
24-hour clock and parts of the day
Brazil uses the 24-hour clock in writing and formal contexts — schedules, tickets, official appointments: 14h (2 p.m.), 20h30 (8:30 p.m.). In casual speech people often switch to 12-hour times with a time-of-day tag instead:
- da manhã — in the morning (roughly 5 a.m.–noon)
- da tarde — in the afternoon (noon–6 p.m.)
- da noite — in the evening/night (6 p.m. onward)
- da madrugada — in the small hours (after midnight to dawn)
So 8 a.m. is oito da manhã and 8 p.m. is oito da noite.
O voo sai às seis da manhã, então temos que acordar cedo.
The flight leaves at six in the morning, so we have to wake up early.
A loja fecha às oito da noite durante a semana.
The store closes at eight in the evening on weekdays.
A consulta é amanhã às quatorze horas.
The appointment is tomorrow at 2 p.m.
When writing the 24-hour time, Brazil uses h as the separator: 14h, 14h30, 9h15 — not a colon, and never AM/PM.
Common Mistakes
❌ A festa é no dia um de maio.
Incorrect — the 1st of the month is the ordinal 'primeiro', not the cardinal 'um'.
✅ A festa é no dia primeiro de maio.
The party is on the first of May.
The 1st is the only day that takes an ordinal — learners either over-extend ordinals to all days or forget primeiro for the first.
❌ Nasci em três de Dezembro.
Incorrect — month names are lowercase in Portuguese.
✅ Nasci em três de dezembro.
I was born on the third of December.
English capitalizes months; Portuguese never does.
❌ É duas horas.
Incorrect — 'ser' must agree: two or more hours takes the plural 'são'.
✅ São duas horas.
It's two o'clock.
❌ São uma hora.
Incorrect — one o'clock is singular: 'é uma hora'.
✅ É uma hora.
It's one o'clock.
❌ Chego às dois da tarde.
Incorrect — 'dois' must be feminine to agree with the implied 'horas'.
✅ Chego às duas da tarde.
I'll arrive at two in the afternoon.
Key Takeaways
- Days are cardinals, except the 1st = primeiro; link parts with de (quinze de março de 2025).
- Months and weekdays are lowercase; numeric dates are day/month/year (25/12).
- Telling time uses ser agreeing with the hour: é uma hora but são duas horas; uma/duas are feminine.
- e for minutes past, para as for minutes before; meia = 30; meio-dia / meia-noite for noon and midnight.
- Use the 24-hour clock with h in writing (14h30); in speech tag the hour with da manhã / da tarde / da noite.
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Start learning Portuguese→Related Topics
- Cardinal Numbers 1-100A1 — How to count from zero to one hundred in Brazilian Portuguese, including the gendered forms um/uma and dois/duas and the role of 'e'.
- Time ExpressionsA1 — The idiomatic Brazilian time chunks — já já, daqui a pouco vs agora há pouco, em cima da hora, de vez em quando — and the future/past split that trips learners up.
- Numbers: OverviewA1 — A map of Brazilian Portuguese numbers — gender agreement on um/uma, dois/duas and the hundreds, the reversed comma-decimal/period-thousands punctuation, and the 'e' that links the parts.
- Ordinal Numbers (First, Second, Third)A2 — Brazilian Portuguese ordinals from primeiro to milésimo: how they agree in gender and number, how they abbreviate, and why Brazilians switch to cardinals above tenth.