Learn Italian: Sono le due meno venti.

In Italian, hours are plural! You are literally saying "They are two hours." You only use the singular è ("it is") for one o'clock (l'una), noon (mezzogiorno), or midnight (mezzanotte). Everything else uses sono.

Why is there a le before due?

Le is the feminine plural word for "the". It is used because it refers to the hidden word ore (hours), which is feminine and plural. Italians just drop the word ore to keep it short, leaving us with le due.

How does meno venti mean "twenty to"?

Meno literally means "minus" or "less". Instead of saying "twenty to two", Italians literally say "two minus twenty". When the time is past the half-hour mark, it is very common to jump to the next hour and subtract the minutes using meno.

Can I just read the time like a digital clock and say it's one-forty?

Yes! You can absolutely say È l'una e quaranta (It is one and forty). Both ways are perfectly correct and widely used, just like "one forty" and "twenty to two" in English.