European Time Format: How to Write Time in Europe?

You might be doing business with a European and you want to schedule an online meeting, but have no idea how to tell time in a way both of you understand. You might have also recalled your tour around Europe and found yourself missing the letters A.M. and P.M. when looking at the train schedule or from the TV in your hotel room.

Their convention for writing time is different from most English-speaking countries, but it's not hard to understand at all. You've definitely seen it somewhere else already, but probably know it only as _military time_.

The 24-Hour Clock

Most non-English speaking countries including the whole of Europe officially use the 24-HOUR CLOCK in writing their time. This means writing 14:30 instead of 2:30 PM, but the time before the 12th hour is written the same. In the 24-hour clock, 9:30 A.M. is still 9:30, just without the A.M.

The hour is written first, followed by the minutes and the seconds. They're usually separated by either a colon or a period (e.g. 21.35.50 or 21:35). Instead of stopping the count at 12 and switching A.M. to P.M. to denote that it's the latter half of the day, the clock is only reset after 24 hours. Thus, it's called a _24-HOUR CLOCK_.

In Germany, time used to be exclusively written with a period as a separator, but they began using the colon as well to comply with the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standards. France, on the other hand, still uses the letter "h". Instead of writing 15:55, they'd write it as 15h55 to denote that the first number is the hour.

Having A.M. and P.M. after the numerals is how time is written according to the 12-HOUR CLOCK and it's the convention for writing time only in a handful of countries such as the United States and the Commonwealth.

Spoken Time Could Be Different

While the 24-hour clock is the standard for the written time, Europeans have no problem understanding the 12-hour clock because it's also common in their spoken language.

The 24-hour clock is commonly spoken in some countries only to tell the exact time, but a variation of the 12-hour clock is used for informal communication. For example, it's preferable to say the train arrives at 15:30 or that they want to make an appointment for 13:00. When speaking informally, however, they might tell their roommates "I'm leaving at 10 minutes to seven" (10 minutes before 7:00 P.M. meaning 6:50 P.M.).

Even the BBC website uses the 24-hour clock for its program listing but uses the 12-hour clock in promotions for upcoming programs.

Conclusion

Time is written in a 24-hour notation in Europe. It's commonly known as military time in the United States and the clock is only reset after the 24th hour. The hours, minutes, and seconds are usually separated by periods or colons, depending on the country.

Nonetheless, Europeans have no problem understanding the 12-hour clock used by other countries. This is because they usually tell time informally this way. The 24-hour clock is only used in a formal context and to avoid confusion.