| ▲ | MrJohz 3 hours ago | |
I don't do the "chips" one, because it's usually clear enough from context, and the people I speak English to generally know me and my foibles. But I do religiously say "half past 6" now, instead of shortening it to "half six". In Germany, you count towards the next hour, so our "half past six" is their "half to seven". To avoid ambiguity, I always say "half past" in English so that Germans (and I!) remember to compensate for the language barrier. Unfortunately "half to" isn't really a thing in German, so I can't do the opposite when I'm speaking German. It's more complicated than this and how you say "quarter to eleven" is A Whole Thing in Germany, but everyone agrees on the half hour at least | ||