There are two kinds of people for whom this lesson is overkill: those of you who have watches you check regularly, and those of you who are relatively punctual by nature. For the rest of us, it's useful to be able to find out what time it is in China. And so in this lesson we focus on learning how to ask this question in Chinese. We'll leave perfecting the look of stunned amazement you'll offer on hearing you're late up to you.

Want more? In addition to learning how to ask what time it is, this Chinese podcast also covers a few simple numbers so that you can understand the answer you get. We also touch briefly on why the past tense is not always the past tense.