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Italian expression of the day: ‘Ora legale’

What is Italy's 'legal time', and when does it start?

Published: 26 March 2021 16:37 CET

Italian expression of the day: 'Ora legale'

Photo: Annie Spratt/Unsplash/Nicolas Raymond

If you’re in Italy this weekend, you’ll find yourself running on ‘legal time’.

L’ora legale (‘legal time’), or what we’d call daylight savings time, is what Italy – along with the rest of Europe – switches to in summer.

The phrase is used to differentiate from l’ora solare: ‘solar time’, also known as standard or winter time.

While l’ora solare isn’t true solar time, calculated by the movement of the sun in the sky, it’s closer to it than l’ora legale, when we’re deliberately out of sync by an hour in order to give ourselves an extra hour of daylight in the evening.

Typically l’ora legale lasts for seven months between late March and late October, while l’ora solare is in place throughout the winter.

The clocks go forward (avanti) in spring, while in autumn they go backwards (indietro).

This year the switch falls on Sunday, March 28th, with clocks going forward at 2am and costing us an hour in bed.

Fra poco si passa all’ora legale: dovremo portare le lancette un’ora avanti.
Soon we’ll go back to summer time: we have to put our clocks forward an hour.

Note that ora is the word for both ‘time’ and ‘hour’ in Italian: you can usually tell the difference by whether it’s used with the definite article (l’ora, ‘the time’) or the indefinite (un’ora, ‘an hour’).

Potentially l’ora legale could be on its way out: the EU has said that each member state is free to get rid of the clock changes and stick to either winter or summer time all year long.

Italy hasn’t yet decided which ora it will pick, or indeed whether it will keep them both.

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Italian word of the day: Metà vs mezzo

It’s often the case in Italy that you’ll find several words that mean something very similar, and it’s not always easy to know which one is appropriate. Our new mini series looks at some of the most common word pairs, and sorts out which should be used and when.

Why do I need to know the difference between metà and mezzo?

Because you’ll need to use both of them in daily conversation if you live in Italy, but the difference in meaning isn’t always clear.

What’s the difference?

When you want to talk about ‘half’ of something in Italian, it may seem as though you have two choices.

Depending on what you’re talking about, you could reach for either metà or mezzo (or mezza, which we’ll come to later) but many language learners say they’re not always sure which one to use in certain situations.

Put simply, the difference between metà and mezzo is much the same as the difference between ‘half’ and ‘middle’ in English.

Metà: a half, as in one of two equal parts of something.

Mezzo: the middle, as in equally distant from two points.

For example:

Ha mangiato metà torta

He ate half of the cake

Facciamo a metà

Let’s split it (in half)

E’ sdraiato in mezzo alla strada

He’s lying in the middle of the street

Non penso che ti dovrebbe mettere in mezzo

I don’t think she should be putting you in the middle of this

READ ALSO: Come stai vs come va

But is anything in Italian ever really that simple?

There are some specific situations where the two words seem to be used interchangeably, or where it’s not clear why one is typically used and not the other.

Confusion arises particularly around telling the time in Italian, as you could say:

Sono le undici e mezzo

It’s half past eleven

Il mio treno arriva alle 5.40: vediamoci dieci minuti prima, alla mezza.

My train arrives at 5.40: let’s meet ten minutes before, at half past.

Why in this case aren’t we using metà for ‘half’? And why is it sometimes mezza rather than mezzo?

The English ‘half past’ doesn’t translate literally into Italian. Mezzo is used here instead, since we’re talking about the ‘middle of’ the hour, the point equally distant between two hours.

This might take some getting used to for English native speakers, but it is pretty logical.

As for why it’s mezza in the second example, this isn’t because it needs to agree with the gender of the noun in the sentence.

In fact, dictionaries tell us it’s always more correct to use mezzo regardless (although many Italians themselves find this rule confusing.)

But, in this case, as the language guardians at Italy’s Accademia della Crusca explain, mezza may (if you prefer) be used instead of mezzo when we already know the time, or at least the hour, being talked about.

So if you had earlier told someone an event would start at 8pm, but it’s now been delayed by half an hour, you could then say:

Comincerà alle otto e mezza

But if you’re inviting someone for the first time, you’d probably stick to:

Alle otto e mezzo

This can be a lot to remember when you’re in the middle of a conversation, but with practice you’ll soon get a feel for which word sounds right in which context.

Do you have an Italian word you’d like us to feature? If so, please email us with your suggestion.

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