Teacher Notes: Two clues to help us read and tell time from the clock.

Note

Teacher Notes

Clue number 1:

In order to read and tell time (in Kinyarwanda) which corresponds to the English hour, you just read the numeric indicator of the hour across on the watch. All you need to do now is to be specific according to the time before noon (mugitondo)a.m. or the time after noon (nimugoroba) p.m. For instance, If you say “it is 7:00 a.m.” , in Kinyarwanda time we should say “ni saa moya ya mugitondo”. Then, for 7:00 p.m” we should say “ni saa moya ya nimugoroba”, and so on. Let’s do a bit of demonstration here:

English Time		In Kinyarwanda you say
6:00	six o’clock	saa cumi n’ebyiri (12:00)
7:00	seven ‘clock	saa moya (1:00)
8:00	eight o’clock	saa mbiri (2:00)
9:00	nine o’clock	saa tatu (3:00)
10:00	ten o’clock	saa ine (4:00)
11:00	eleven o’clock	saa tanu (5:00)
12:00	twelve o’clock	saa sita(6:00)
1:00	one o’clock	saa saba (7:00)
2:00 Etc.	two o’clock	saa munani (8:00) Etc.

Clue number 2:

Another helpful clue to figuring the hour is that if by English time the number of the hour is “6 or less”, add 6 to it; if the number is “7 or more”, subtract 6 from it, Thus, 6:00 (English) (6 + 6 = 12) is: saa cumi n’ebyiri. Then say, ni saa cumi n'ebyiri. 4:00 (English) (4 + 6 = 10) saa kumi. Then say, ni saa kumi (saa cumi).