Gary
English Tutor
Native Speaker with Business Background
The day is divided into two periods: a.m. (from Latin ante meridiem, meaning, before midday) and p.m. (from Latin post meridiem, meaning, past midday).
12:30 a.m. is in the first period which begins at midnight (technically 12:00 a.m.) and the 12:30 p.m. is just after noon (which technically is 12 p.m.).To avoid confusion, many people do not use 12 a.m or 12 p.m. and prefer to use midnight and noon.Afternoon begins at noon and runs until evening. Different cultures and even individuals define the time it ends in different manners. Most of the time, they consider afternoon to end when the sun sets but sometimes people will base it on a certain time. I personally feel we have much more important things to worry about than when afternoon ends and don't recommend wasting time worrying about it.
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Mr
Wouldn't it be better to actually answer the question... forgetting the 12:30 for a moment and let us focus on am and pm. am stands for “ante meridian”, which is Latin for “Before Midday”. pm. stands for “Post Meridian”, which is Latin for “After Midday”.But if there is still confusion, why not use the 24 hour clock and then there is no confusion what so ever because everyone should know that 00:00 is midnight and 12:00 is midday, thus 00:30 is 30 minutes past midnight and 12:30 is 30 minutes past mid-day or half twelve (as the English would say) or half past twelve in the morning or half past twelve in the afternoon.
NAM SAN
Ok 24 hours clock is the correct answer that explains clearly the use of the Times zone .That helps us understand easily and avoid confusion between 12:00 am and 12:00pm on the same day or two days ( example: referring to 00:00 and later ( 00:05 ) is at early beginning of a new day, when 12:00 is at noon, and later 13:00 it's 1 :00pm after noon, 23:45 that is 11:45 pm ( on that day )
This 12:30 am and pm is so confusing for so many years and nobody tries to make a change? You know why this is confusing? Because it's against the definition of AM and PM.Let's say, per definition, AM is for the time 0-12:00 and PM is for the time 12-24. So 0-12:00 is 0 am-12:00 am, 12:00-24:00 is 0 pm-12:00 pm. The noon can be 12:00 am or 0:00 pm. The midnight can be 12:00PM or 0:00 AM. Viola, the problem resolved. But rather be proud/stubborn than be confusing? Very British! The same mentality is manifested at refusing metric system.
Timucin
I would like to express my frustration about this. I would like to know whose idea was that a time interval starts at 12 and ends at 11 when the said period isn't even circular. There is an 11 and there is a 12 but it doesn't come after 11 in any case. The beginning and end is not connected because for some reason we needed to divide a perfectly circular time period into two parts with absolutely no beneficial reason. It would be fine if we just had the decency to start the periods at 0 and end at 11 like any sane person would do. Maybe they didn't have the number 0 back then IDK but if that's the case they should have had no business inventing this AM PM nonsense. I mean they had the concept of nonexistence. If the time was 03:00 AM they wouldn't be like "The hour is 3 but i have no idea what's happening with minutes over here, let's wait it out and see" they know there's no exceeding minute part of that time expression. They could do the same with 00:30. It's as easy as saying "the time is 30 minutes." but no. for some reason it made more sense for them to say "it's the 12th hour because it just started". As you may have already noticed, I have strong feelings for this.
Marina
I was confused too in the beginning until I looked into it. And in life we refer as 30 min after noon to explain 12.30 pm. And 12.30 am as 30 min after midnight. Been in USA for 18 years it's now clear. 🙏
English Tutor
Tutor
Hello there! Welcome back here in my class. So for today's lesson we're going to discuss about what is the difference between 12:30AM and 12:30PM? Okay so when do we say 12:30 AM? So it's in the first period which begins at midnight. So technically, 12AM and 12:30PM is just afternoon, which technically is 12PM. So to avoid confusion, many people do not use 12AM or 12PM, and prefer to use midnight for 12AM and noon for 12PM. So afternoon begins at noon, and runs until evening. So that is how we identify between 12:30AM and 12:30 PM. Thank you for listening, I hope to see you soon in my class!
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