There is a time difference of five hours.

English: There is a time difference of five hours.

French: Il y a un décalage horaire de cinq heures.

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A few weeks ago in the south of France. Il y a quelques semaines au sud de la France. I drove through some quaint French towns in the Pyrenees, many of which attract tourists who go there for the skiing. In order: Pierrefitte-Nestalas, Cauterets, Luz-Saint-Sauveur, Ginoles.

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Sometimes, pilots like to announce what the time difference is between the departure city and the arrival city. It’s nice to know what the local time in the arrival city is, but passengers usually don’t care too much about how many hours the time difference is between the departure and arrival cities. Your pilots may announce that you’re now 5 hours ahead or 4 hours behind, etc. This part of the translation is often left out as it’s not the most important piece of information. If you do wish to translate it, you can just say that “there is a time difference of 5 hours.”

Il y a=There is, there are

Décalage (m) horaire=Time difference

De cinq heures=Of five hours

Sometimes, on shorter flights, a passenger may ask you if there’s a time difference between the departure and arrival city.

“Est-ce qu’il y a un décalage (horaire) entre Toronto et Québec?’’ ‘’Is there a time difference between Toronto and Quebec City?”

There is no time difference, so you can just answer “Non” and maybe add “Il est 10:15 à Québec aussi.” “It’s 10:15 in Quebec City as well.”

If there is a difference, you can say “Oui, une heure.” “Yes, one hour.”

Instead of “décalage horaire”, you may hear your passengers and colleagues say “changement (m) d’heure” literally “change of hour”. Technically, “changement d’heure” refers to time changes like daylight savings time, and doesn’t refer to time zone changes. Nevertheless, some French speakers will still say this to you, thus it’s important you be able to recognize it.

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Special pre-launch price for Module 1 (French basics) and Module 2 (French for flight attendant French tests).

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Local time

English: Local time

French: Heure locale

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A few weeks ago in Lourdes. Il y a quelques semaines à Lourdes. Lourdes, France is a pilgrimage city, and many come to the site pictured below: Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes.

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On a passenger’s ticket, and on a flight attendant’s schedule, all times are marked in local times. For example, for a flight departing from Montreal and arriving in Vancouver, the departure time is the local time in Montreal and the arrival time the local time in Vancouver. As a side note, in order to coordinate all airplane movements worldwide, pilots and air traffic control towers everywhere use UTC (Coordinated Universal Time), otherwise known as GMT (Greenwich Mean Time), or also called Zulu time. The International Space Station also uses UTC.

Oftentimes, before landing in a different time zone, pilots like to announce the expected arrival time as well as the local time. They often say something along the lines of “if you’d like to adjust your watches, the local time (in Vancouver) right now is ten fifteen. We expect to land in about thirty minutes.” If you’re landing in Vancouver, it’ll be understood that “local time” refers to “local Vancouver time”. Announcing the local time is less common than it was before as most of our cell phones will automatically adjust to the local time when we turn them on upon arrival. Many airplanes also have entertainment screens that play movies and also show real-time maps of the flight as well as local times across the world.

Heure (f)=hour

Local(e)=local

Here are a couple of ways you can announce the local time in French, if need be.

Il est dix heure quinze, heure locale (à Vancouver)=It is ten fifteen, local time (in Vancouver)

L’heure locale (à Vancouver) :dix heures quinze=The local time (in Vancouver) : ten fifteen

Of course, French also has a way to say “adjust your watches” but this part is rather superfluous and in order to make translation easier for you, we recommend leaving it out. Simply translate what the local time is.

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Want to learn to speak the French you need to work as a flight attendant? Learn even more with Canadian French for Flight Attendants.

Special pre-launch price for Module 1 (French basics) and Module 2 (French for flight attendant French tests).

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Ten fifteen (reading time)

English: Ten fifteen (reading time)

French: Dix heures quinze

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A few weeks ago in the south of France. Il y a quelques semaines au sud de la France. The plum tree flowers were blossoming that week in the French countryside. It was also nice to relax in a hammock by the lake.

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Here’s a short lesson on how to read time in French, which is important for flight attendants, as you may expect. It’s common for you to need tell passengers arrival times, the current time, departure times, etc. either in person or in an announcement. Most times will follow the same pattern.

10:15 is read ‘’dix heures quinze.’’

Heure (f)=Hour

So you’re literally saying “ten hours fifteen”.

9:30 “neuf heures trente” Notice here that ‘’9’’ (neuf) is pronounced “neuve” in front of “heures”, which you can listen to and practice throughout our Canadian French for Flight Attendants audio course.

1:48 “Une heure quarante-huit”

We say ‘’Une heure’’ and not ‘’un heure’’ because ‘’heure’’ is feminine.

11:01 “Onze heures une”

We say ‘’onze heures une” and not “onze heure un” because the implied word “minute” is feminine, even if we usually don’t say it in French when telling time. “One minute” “Une minute”.

16:05 “Seize heures cinq”

In an airport or train station context, it’s very common to use the 24-hour clock. The 24-hour clock is also more commonly used in everyday life in French than it is in English. Using the 24-hour clock is also simpler for you as you no longer need to learn to say “in the morning”, “in the afternoon”, “in the evening” in French in order to distinguish 8AM/8PM, 2AM/2PM, etc. You’ll simply say ‘’huit heures”/”vingt heures” or “deux heures’’/’’quatorze heures’’.

There are two exceptions to this pattern of reading time in French, and they are “midnight” and “noon”.

Minuit=Midnight

Midi=Midday, noon

12:20AM is usually read “minuit vingt”.

12:20PM is usually read “midi vingt”.

Saying “douze heures vingt” isn’t wrong per se, but it is rarely heard.

French also has ways to say things like “quarter to” and “half past” and “ten to”, but these aren’t phrases you’d hear often from passengers, in our experience. Even if the captain uses these terms in an announcement in English, you can keep things simple for yourself and just use the form you already know in your translation. 5:30 “half past five” “cinq heures trente”. 6:45 “quarter to seven” “six heures quarante-cinq”.

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Want to learn to speak the French you need to work as a flight attendant? Learn even more with Canadian French for Flight Attendants.

Special pre-launch price for Module 1 (French basics) and Module 2 (French for flight attendant French tests).

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