The phrases "Когда?" and "Во сколько?" and "В котором часу?" can all mean "At what time?" Oddly enough, even though "В котором часу?" asks the question in the locative-prepositional case, the answer usually comes in the form of a time phrase in the accusative case after the preposition в.

Examples:

To express the idea that something happens on the hour straight up, the preposition в is used with the accusative case. Thus in the phrase «в час» “at one o'clock” the word час is put in the accusative case. Notice also that the Russians do not usually express the number один, but rather the let the singular form of час do all the work. In «в два часа» it's the word два that is in the accusative case, and then the number два requires the genitive singular of час. That holds true in the phrases «в три часа» and «в четыре часа» as well. For all the rest of the o'clocks, e.g. «в пять часов», etc., the numbers require the genitive plural of час.

Here we have a table with all the possible times of day on the hour.

These time phrases can also be used in the past and future tenses.

The words полдень noon and полночь midnight are also used in time telling in the accusative case:

Other entries dealing with time are soon to come. Look for them under the categories "Time phrases" and "What time is it" and "At what time."

The simplest way to say at what time something happens in Russian is also the oddest way to the English speaker's mind: by indicating during which hour it occurs. To do so we use the prepositional case after the preposition в. The word час has an irregular form in the prepositional singular, which is часу. The phrase «в первом часу» thus means the period from 12:00 to 12:59. Assume someone asks the question «Когда Борис обычно приезжает домой?» “What time does Boris usually come home?” Here's the complete list of possible responses using this construction.

Since English doesn't have an exact equivalent phrase, sometimes one might fudge in how the phrase is translated, depending on the context. Thus we might translate «Он приехал в шестом часу» as:

• He arrived after five.
• He arrived between five and six.
• He arrived before six.

Other entries dealing with time are soon to come. Look for them under the categories "Time phrases" and "What time is it" and "At what time."

There are three ways to ask “When?” in Russian if you are referring to the time of day, and they are «Когда?» “When?”, «Во сколько?» “At what time?”, and «В котором часу?» “In which hour?”. «Когда?» is the most common, followed by «Во сколько?» and although «В котором часу?» is perfectly grammatical, it is slowly becoming less common nowadays.

When answering these questions, Russian again uses quite a few different constructions, just as it does when answering the question “What time is it?” Specifically one has to distinguish when something happens:

• right on the hour, or
• at a quarter after the hour, or
• at a quarter to the hour, or
• at half past the hour, or
• at a particular minute during the first half of the hour, or
• at a particular mintue during the second half of the hour, or
• generically somewhere between one hour or another.

Over the next couple of weeks we will explore the details of those constructions.

Other entries dealing with time are soon to come. Look for them under the categories "Time phrases" and "What time is it" and "At what time."