“Continuous”, “consecutive”, and “straight“

Question

When I want to say that I worked for three hours without stopping, do all of the following sentences mean the same?

1. I worked for three continuous hours.
2. I worked for three consecutive hours.
3. I worked for three straight hours.

Answer 1

Yes, all three of these have essentially the same meaning.

In normal conversation I would use the "three straight hours" version as that is a bit more informal.

The "three continuous hours" is, in my opinion, technically correct but a bit awkward. Generally you would not hear a native English speaker say it this way.

The "three consecutive" hours is also a common usage but a bit more formal than "straight".