Now that I’ve listed the numbers, let’s use them that we can express age and time.

If you want to know how to say: How old are you? formally, it’s like this: Hoe oud bent u?

How old are you? informally is: Hoe oud ben je?

You can answer this question by saying: I am _____ years old, which in Dutch is: Ik ben ____ jaar.

If you look back at a couple of the posts, you can choose the accurate number for your age.

Now to express the time, let’s say someone asks you: What time is it?

In Dutch it’s: Hoe laat is het?

1:00 – Het is een uur. (It’s 1 o’clock)

2:00 – Het is twee uur. (It’s 2 o’clock)

Now if you want to say something like “It’s 3:30” in Dutch, add the word “half” before the number.

3:30 – Het is half vier. (It’s 3:30)

11:30 – Het is half twaalf. (It’s 11:30)

Another thing I want to add is that the 24 hour system is used in the Netherlands. That means that 1pm in the Netherlands is expressed as 13:00. It’s what Americans call “military” time. As a result, 7:00 pm in the Netherlands is going to be expressed as 19.00 u. So 4:30 pm is going to be expressed as 16.30 u. Another thing I want to point out is the punctuation. Instead of colons, the Dutch use periods.

Ok, so here’s the fun part. In the comments section, state your age (you can lie about it) and the time you wrote the comment. It’ll be good practice!