In Spain, the concept of time is little bit differently than in the U.S.

Times of Day

Morning starts whenever you wake up. Morning lasts until lunch time which is at 2pm. So, if a Spaniard says “la una de la mañana,” she means “one in the afternoon!” From 2pm until dinner time (9pm) is called la tarde or “the latter (period of the day).” Noche (night) lasts from 9pm until the time you wake up. As you can imagine, things can get a little confusing with the concepts of night and morning. If you go to bed at 3am, you’d say that you’re going to bed a las tres de la noche. But if you wake up at 3am, you could say that you’re waking up a las tres de la mañana. So, it all subjective and depends on whether you’re waking up or going to sleep. Also, as I hinted at before, the whole period between 12:00-1:59 can be confusing for Americans because Las doce y media de la mañana means 12:30pm!

A.M./P.M. vs. Military Time

Aside from the notions of mañana, tarde and noche, the people of Spain refer to the hours of the day pretty much just like us Americans when speaking. The only difference is that, instead of saying “twelve O’clock”, we say las doce. You can optionally add the word horas to the end (e.g. las doce horas). However, when we write the time of day, we write in military time, sort of. 1pm, for example, is written 13h. 1:30pm is written 13:30. Also, be on the lookout for different symbols to separate the hour from the minutes. I’ve seen 1:30pm written as 13:30, 13’30 and 13.30.