ESL and Telling the Time

One basic thing that English language learners need to know is how to tell the time.

I was talking to one of my ESL students today. We were practicing prepositions of time (in/at/on). I asked what time he left for work. He said, "I left at 8:05." However, when he said "8:05," he said, "eight-five." He left out the "oh."

It's actually a little strange to pronounce the "O" in 8:05 as the letter "oh." One might expect it to be "eight-zero-five" since the "0" is a number. However, native English speakers say the time from one minute after the hour through nine minutes after the hour with "oh" instead of zero.

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