First, you need to know numbers 1-12:
1. ek 2. do 3. teen 4. char 5. panch 6. che 7. sat 8. aat 9. nau 10. dus 11. gyarah 12. barah
Then, you need to know a few vocabulary words:
o'clock: bujah (singular) or bujeh (plural)
is/are: hai/haiN
To tell time on the hour, all you need to do is use this sentence formation:
(number) + bujah/bujeh + hai/haiN
** If you are saying, "It is one o'clock," the sentence is singluar, so you use "bujah" and "hai".
** If you are saying it is any other time, the sentence is plural, so you use "bujeh" and "haiN".
Ex) It is one o'clock. Ek bujah hai.
It is three o'clock. Teen bujeh haiN.
To tell the time on the half hour:
1:30 and 2:30 have their own words. 1:30 is "ded" and 2:30 is "dhaii".
Ex) It is 1:30. Ded bujeh haiN.
It is 2:30. Dhai bujeh haiN.
All other half hours are constructed by adding the word "saadheh" before the number.
Saadheh + (hour) + haiN
Ex) It is 4:30. Saadheh char bujeh haiN.
It is 7:30. Saadheh sat bujeh haiN.
Quarter past: "Savaah"
Quarter to: "Pauneh"
Ex) It is 7:45. Pauneh aat bujeh haiN. (It is quarter to 8.)
It is 2:15. Savaah do bujeh haiN. (It is quarter past 2.)
Comments
I realized early on that this was going to be much too difficult to teach to the class in only a short lesson, so I decided to focus just on telling time on the hour. To do this, I wrote the phonetic, romanized spelling of each number 1-12 on the board so that the class could sound them out and refer to them when learning the rest of the lesson. I then explained the sentence structure for "It is x o'clock" and the exception of using the singular form for one o'clock. Once I had explained this, it was very easy for the class to give examples because they just had to read the sentence from the board, inserting the correct number, and remembering the exception for one o'clock. I quizzed the class by calling on different students to tell me a time in Hindi, and although the answer was always written on the board, I think the repetition of the sentence structure from each class member allowed the sentence to stick in their minds better.
This exercise was helpful for me because I had to ensure I knew how to say any time before I stood up in front of the class to teach them. And after I had to correct them and listen to their answers to be sure they were right, I felt like I gained a better grasp on the sentence structure. By hearing everyone in the class repeating "It is x o'clock," the sound of the sentence stuck in my head better as well. Overall, telling time is probably one of my best tasks, perhaps because I spent extra time on it teaching others.