"It is 12 o'clock now."

Translation: 现在十二点。

[ONLYAARON]

Is 十二点 acceptable for both Noon and Midnight?

[HaydenMiner]

So far as I know - no. Since China uses the 24 hour time system, 十二点 means 12:00 noon, which is different than 24:00 midnight. Midnight would therefore be 二十四点.

Hope that helps!

[MicahHeyer]

Can somebody help me understand the grammar here? 在 in previous lessons seems to generally be used as a marker of location translating closely to "is in", but here it seems to indicate time. I'm tempted to read 现在十二点 as now "is" (在) 12:00, but that would seem to use the word differently from how it was used in earlier lessons. Or is 在 not a verb here at all?

[thraamo]

在 is not a verb here, 现在 means "now"

[ONLYAARON]

Yes. 现在 is a compound word and should not be broken into two words. (It's the same with the word for "week" which is completely different when combined versus when separated, 星期)

[Alexsandra882661]

Ugh

[Sky_Larme]

Why don't we need "shi4" here?

[WaaDoku]

Does Sandhi occur here for 十二？Sounds like shěr instead of shíèr to me.

[CWKCA]

why not 現在中午十二點？

[NasuSamaruk0]

現在是12點鐘。 is also correct