In the Netherlands, dates are written using the little-endian pattern "day–month–year" as is usual elsewhere in Europe and many other countries. Either dashes or slashes are used as separators. Times are written using 24-hour notation.
dd-mm-yyyy (10-09-2000)
dddd dd-mm-yyyy (zondag 10-09-2000)
dddd dd mmmm yyyy (zondag 10 september 2000)
The names and abbreviations of months and days are as follows:
English
Dutch
Dutch abbreviation
January
januari
jan.
February
februari
feb.
March
maart
mrt.
April
april
apr.
May
mei
mei
June
juni
juni
July
juli
juli
August
augustus
aug.
September
september
sep.
October
oktober
okt.
November
november
nov.
December
december
dec.
English
Dutch
Dutch abbreviation
Monday
maandag
ma.
Tuesday
dinsdag
di.
Wednesday
woensdag
wo.
Thursday
donderdag
do.
Friday
vrijdag
vr.
Saturday
zaterdag
za.
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 abbreviationu.– 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. The actual Dutch terms for a.m. and p.m. are respectively v.m. and n.m. (voormiddag and namiddag), but these are very old-fashioned and even more rare than the use of a.m. and p.m. in written language.
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, which is not quite common, usually the written form is pronounced with the hours as a number, the word "uur" (hour) followed by 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".
