Welcome to the second and last part in our series on time-telling. In the first part, we looked at how to tell the o’clocks in Twi. The present one takes a look at the irregular times, the likes of 4:15, 9:21, 2:01, etc.

Video Lesson

There are typically two ways to tell the irregular times in Twi, just like it is in English.

In English, you can tell the time:

1. in the clockwise direction: [number of minutes that’s gone past the o’clock] –> minutes –> past –> [already-struck o’clock].

Examples:

• [20] minutes past [2 o’clock] –> 2:20
• [12] minutes past [9 o’clock] –> 9:12

1. in the anticlockwise direction: [number of minutes left before the o’clock] –> minutes –> to/before –> [yet-to-be-struck o’clock].

Examples:

• [5] minutes to/before [3 o’clock] –> 2:55
• [25] minutes to/before [6 o’clock] –> 5:35

Telling Irregular Times in Twi

1. In the clockwise direction

• abɔ –> [already-struck o’clock] –> apa ho –> simma –> [number of minutes that’s gone past the o’clock]

Example: abɔ [nnɔnsia] apa ho simma [aduanan] – 6:40

or

• [already-struck o’clock] abɔ–> apa ho –> simma –> [number of minutes that’s gone past the o’clock]

Example: [nnɔnsia] abɔ apa ho simma [aduanan] – 6:40

2. in the anticlockwise direction:

• aka –> simma –> [number of minutes left before the o’clock] –> na abɔ [yet-to-be-struck o’clock]

Example: aka simma [aduonu] na abɔ [nnɔnson] – 6:40

Let’s look at more examples in the table below: