Surely on more than one occasion you had doubts when writing or pronouncing a word in Spanish, which often happens. For this reason, most people turn to internet pages to find out the correct form.
Something that has haunted us Spanish speakers for years is how to correctly say the time between noon and one o'clock in the afternoon. Is it 12:30 p.m. or 12:30 m.? Finally, the Royal Spanish Academy gave us the answer.
Aclarando la eterna duda
The cultural institution admits that you can say '12:30 de la tarde' or '12:30 del mediodía', but not '12:30 de la mañana'. For this last case, the only exception is when in common usage we refer to the "part of the day between sunrise and lunchtime". For example, when we have an event we can say that it is 'from eleven-thirty to twelve-thirty in the morning'.
¿Y es '12:30 p. m.' o '12:30 m.'?
Although we know it is appropriate to say 'twelve-thirty in the afternoon or in the evening', there is still doubt when writing the time with numbers. Should they be accompanied by the abbreviation 'm.' (meridies or midday) or 'p. m.' (post meridies or after midday)?
Regarding this, the institution based in Madrid clarifies that the time referring to 30 minutes past noon should be written with the abbreviation 'p. m.'. That is, the correct way to write it is '12:30 p. m.', with the use of 'm.' only valid for exact midday.
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