Date and time notation in the Netherlands

In the Netherlands, dates are written using the little-endian pattern "daymonthyear" as is usual elsewhere in Europe and many other countries. Times are written using the 24-hour.

The names and abbr. of months and days are as follows:

English Dutch Dutch
abbreviation
January januari jan.
February februari febr.
March maart maart
April april april
May mei mei
June juni juni
July juli juli
August augustus aug.
September september sept.
October oktober okt.
November november nov.
December december dec.

English Dutch Dutch
abbreviation
Monday maandag ma.
Tuesday dinsdag di.
Wednesday woensdag woe.
Thursday donderdag do.
Friday vrijdag vrij.
Saturday zaterdag zat.
Sunday zondag zo.

Names of months and days are not capitalised in Dutch.

Time

Dutch TV listings magazines invariably use 24-hour notation

In written language, time is expressed in the 24-hour notation, with or without leading zero, using a full stop or colon as a separator, sometimes followed by the word uur (hour) or its abbreviation u. for example, 22.51 uur, 9.12 u., or 09:12. In technical and scientific texts the use of the abbreviations h, min and s is common for example, 17 h 03 min 16 s.[1] The use of the 12-hour clock in numeric writing is not standard practice, not even in informal writing, and writing e.g., "1.30" for 13:30 would be regarded as odd.

In spoken language, most often time is expressed in the 12-hour clock. However, "a.m." and "p.m." are never used. Instead, an apposition is added, for instance 21:00 is said as "9 uur 's avonds" (9 o'clock in the evening). Half hours are relative to the next hour for example, 5:30 is said as "half 6". Quarter hours are expressed relative to the nearest whole hour for example, 6:15, "kwart over 6" (quarter past six) and 6:45, "kwart voor zeven" (quarter to seven). Minutes are usually rounded off to the nearest five minutes and are expressed relative to the closest half-hour. For instance 05:35 is "5 over half 6" (literally "5 past half to 6") and 05:20 is "tien voor half 6" (literally "10 to half to 6").

When the 24-hour clock is used in spoken language, usually the written form is pronounced with the hours as a number, the word "uur" (hour) and the minutes as a number. For example, 17:21 might be pronounced as "zeventien uur eenentwintig" (seventeen hours twenty-one). Hours over 12 are not usually combined with phrasings using "half", "quarter", "to", or "past".

References

  1. Taaladvies: "8h30 / 8u.30 / 8.30 u. / 8.30 uur"
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