Date and time notation in Italy
| Full date | martedì 15 aprile 2025 15 aprile 2025 |
|---|---|
| All-numeric date | 15/04/2025 2025-04-15 (uncommon)[1] |
| Time | 09:12 9:12 [refresh] (informal) |
Date and time notation in Italy records the date using the day–month–year format (15 aprile 2025 or 15/04/2025). The time is written using the 24-hour clock (09:12); in the spoken language and in informal contexts the 12-hour clock is more commonly adopted, but without using "a.m." or "p.m." suffixes (9:12).
Date
In Italy, the all-numeric form for dates is in the order "day month year", using a stroke as the separator. Example: 31/12/1992 or 31/12/92. Sometimes a dot or a hyphen is used instead of the stroke. Years can be written with two or four digits, and day and month may be written with or without a leading zero. Months and weekdays are written with a lowercase letter since they are not considered proper nouns. A quite common spelling mistake is to drop the final accent in weekdays names from lunedì (Monday) to venerdì (Friday): thus lunedi, martedi, mercoledi, giovedi, venerdi are all wrong. A less common format is year–month–day, used when specifically in computing texts to avoid ambiguity from DMY format. Example: 1992-12-31.
The expanded form is "22 dicembre 2010", optionally with the day of the week: "mercoledì 22 dicembre 2010".[2]
The first day of the month is usually written 1º dicembre or 1° dicembre; 1 dicembre is possible[3] but less desirable.[4] This can either be pronounced il primo dicembre ("the first of December") or l'uno dicembre ("the one of December"),[3] even if the latter may be considered unsatisfactory or wrong.[4] The other days of the month always follow the cardinal form.[3]
Two-digit years may be used in the expanded form, elided with an apostrophe: "(mercoledì) 22 dicembre '10". This notation is considered informal. Three-digit years may be found more rarely: "(mercoledì) 22 dicembre '010".
The first day of the week in Italy is Monday, but for the Church the first day is Sunday.
Time
Official time is always given in 24-hour format. The 24-hour notation is used in writing with a dot or a colon as a separator. Example: 14.05 or 14:05. It is also common to use the comma as a separator (14,05), even if this is generally considered incorrect.[5] The minutes are written with two digits; the hour numbers can be written with or without zero padding (02:05 or 2:05).
In oral communication 12-hours are prominently used since 24-hours are considered very formal. In 12-hours, hour figures are always preceded by the definitive article and a.m. or p.m. are never used. L'una di pomeriggio is 1 p.m. (1 in the afternoon), le due (di pomeriggio) is 2 p.m., le tre (di pomeriggio) is 3 p.m. etc. Hours after sunset or dusk (but in some cases even just after noon) are given as le sette di sera ("7 in the evening"), le otto di sera (8 in the evening) and so on until 11 p.m. which is le undici di sera. Midnight is simply mezzanotte. Following hours are l'una (di notte) (1 a.m., "1 in the night"), le due (di notte) (2 a.m.) or sometimes l'una del mattino (1 in the morning), le due del mattino. After dawn, hours are le otto (del mattino) (8 a.m.), le nove (del mattino) (9 a.m.) until 11 a.m. Midday (noon) is mezzogiorno. 12-hours may be used with approximate time, such as le tre e un quarto (a quarter past three) or with precise time (le tre e diciotto, 03:18 or 15:18). Whether one is referring to a.m. or p.m. is generally implicit in the context of the conversation; otherwise, more information must be provided to avoid confusion: le tre e diciotto del pomeriggio (3:18 p.m.).
In some parts of the country (e.g., Tuscany and Sardinia) only mattina e sera are used in everyday speech: thus, le due di sera is 2 p.m. or 14:00 and le due di mattina is 2 a.m. or 02:00. Furthermore, in Tuscany, until recent times, l'una was virtually unknown: Tuscans used to say il tocco ("the toll", referring to the church bell) instead for both 1 p.m. or 13:00 and 1 a.m. or 01:00.
References
- ^ The year–month–day format is used sometimes in computing contexts.
- ^ "Benedetto XVI -Udienza Generale - Aula Paolo VI". vatican.va (in Italian). 22 December 2010.
- ^ a b c "date [prontuario] in "Enciclopedia dell'Italiano"". www.treccani.it (in Italian). Retrieved 17 June 2020.
- ^ a b Beltramo, Marina; Nesci, Maria Teresa (2011). Dizionario di stile e scrittura. La lingua italiana in pratica (in Italian). Bologna: Zanichelli. p. 237. ISBN 978-88-08-07477-5.
- ^ Lesina, Roberto (1994) [1986]. Il nuovo manuale di stile - edizione 2.0 (in Italian) (2 ed.). Bologna: Zanichelli. p. 186. ISBN 88-08-09602-5.