Hi, Tim here with another 9 to 5 English lesson today, we're going to learn how to talk about times and dates in English.

If you're like most people in business, every day is scheduled down to the minute we've all got meetings, timelines, tasks and deadlines to worry about.

And it seems like our phones are constantly buzzing with calendar notifications.

To keep these complex schedules up to date, we often have toe ask people when something is going toe happen.

An easy way to do that is with the word win like, when is the meeting That could mean either the date or calendar day or the time.

So if you need to be more specific, you might ask at what time is the meeting or what's the date for the meeting?

Let's try these ways of asking about when something will happen.

Listen to each example, then repeat it for yourself.

Ready?

Let's get started.

Could you tell me when the meeting is scheduled?

What's the date for the product launch?

At what time is the delivery supposed to arrive?

When do you need this?

report by that first example is about when a meeting is scheduled.

That's a common way of asking when something is arranged to take place.

You can also ask when something is supposed to happen.

Now, if you know that someone is asking about a date or the day when something is scheduled, what can you say?

Well, it depends.

If it's one specific day, then you say it will happen on that date.

If you're not sure of the exact date, you can say it will happen around that date.

And if it's something that has to happen sometime before a certain day, you can say it must happen by that date.

Does that make sense?

Why don't we try some examples to make sure thistles clear?

Remember to repeat the examples after you hear them.

The conference will begin on July 14th.

Our staff retreat will run from September 3rd to the fifth.

We'll need to finish the new website by the 12th.

We should get together sometime around January the fourth.

Of course, you probably noticed that not everything happens on or before one single day.

Some events, like a company retreat, happened over several days in that case.

As you heard, you can say something runs from one date to another date, and when you say those dates, remember the special form of the number we don't say January 12 or nine, we say January 1st 2nd or ninth.

So we've talked about dates, But how do we talk about the time of day?

Well, there are several important expressions you need to know.

Firstly, we don't say on a time, but rather at a time like the office opens at 9 a.m. But just like dates, if you're not sure exactly when something happens, you can use around.

So you might say something like the delivery should be here around 3 p.m. And noticed that we use a M to indicate the morning hours and PM for the afternoon.

Talking about time also means talking about duration or how long something happens.

A useful word in this case is last.

For example, we can say a meeting lasts one hour.

Let's try some practice with the's time expressions once again repeat the examples after you hear them.

The Webinar starts at 10 a.m. Sharp and lasts about an hour.

We should be able to finish up around 4 30 It's half past three now, so we've got a couple hours to go.

I'm hoping we can get there sometime between nine and 10.

So what does it mean?

If you have a couple of hours to go, saying you have a certain amount of time to go means you have that amount of time remaining.

So if it's 9 30 the meeting is supposed to finish at 10 then you have 30 minutes to go.

Okay, so we've practiced some examples on their own.

But how do these expressions sound in a conversation?

Let's listen to a short dialogue between Bill and Laura.

They're talking about when a factory tour is going to happen.

Let's listen.

Were you able to schedule the factory tour?

Yes, the tour will take place on August, the fourth.

Great.

And did you set A time on that day will start at one PM and finish up around 2 30 That seems pretty straightforward, doesn't it?

When Bill asks about the scheduled factory tour, Laura tells him it will take place on a certain date.

And when he asks about the time of day, she tells him when it will start and around when it will finish.

Now it's your turn to practice.

We'll repeat the dialogue.

But this time we're going to be about the second speaker's words.

You will have to say those parts yourself.

Remember that the tour will happen on August 4th, begin at 1 p.m. And finish around 2 30 Were you able to schedule the factory tour?

Great.

And did you set a time on that day?

All right, that about does it for this lesson.

We've learned some great ways to ask about when things will happen and talk about dates and times.

We'll be back soon with some more useful English expressions.

Until then, so long and happy learning.