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I'm asking about the departure from a school/college or an office. When my college is over (it's time to go home), what expression can I use to say about that time? I'm an Indian and in India, we say "chhutti ho gyi" in Indian language. I want to know how we can say that in English. I've tried to look it up in dictionaries and found that I could say "it's departure time." Is this said to mean that I've got free from my college now it's time to go home? I would be grateful if anyone gives some similar expressions which I can use to mean the same. Please check whether my following sentences are correct to mean the same thing:

  • When is your departure time?
  • Has your departure time passed?
  • When do you get free from job?
  • My departure time has come now.

Please correct the above sentences if they're incorrect or dubious.

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5 Answers 5

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I can't think of any English term that is regularly used for this – at least, not in a noun form.

As Steve Ives mentioned in his answer, this is how I would ask the question:

What time are you leaving?

The term departure time is grammatically correct, but that expression is normally reserved for transportation: planes, trains, and busses. And it generally refers to the time that the conveyance departs (everyone knows that passengers must arrive earlier than that so they can all board before departure.)

If you want to tell your friends that you'll be leaving the campus at 5 o'clock, you'd say something like:

I should be leaving the campus around five.

or:

I should be done at the campus around five.

You'd only use departure time if you were trying to be funny by making something ordinary (i.e., leaving the campus) sound very official:

My departure time from campus will be 5 o'clock.

I could say a father saying this to his young children, if they were leaving for a trip the next day:

Our departure time will be 8 AM.

but that would be overly formal and therefore deliberately humorous. A more natural way to say it would be:

I want us to get out of here by eight.

or:

Let's be pulling out of the driveway before 8 AM.

The same holds for arrival time. We typically say something like:

We should be there a little before 10.

not:

We have a 9:55 estimated arrival time.

unless we are trying to be somewhat humorous by being overly technical.

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  • I think though that "departure time " has set us down the wrong path a little because it's used more for trains and planes than to indicate the end of a term or session after which we will be leaving the area. I interpreted the question as being about going home after the end of a semester/quarter/graduation which is more of a date than a time.
    – ColleenV
    Jun 16, 2015 at 15:30
  • @Colleen - I see what you're saying. Commuter students have "departure times" (i.e., times when they leave to go home for the day). Students who live in the dorms have "departure times" (i.e., times when they leave campus for the summer, or for a winter break.) The former is usually measured by the clock ("I leave at six") while the latter is usually reference by date ("School ends on the fifth"). You ought to leave an answer, I think, but, in case you don't, I'll offer this suggestion: What day does school let out?
    – J.R. ♦
    Jun 16, 2015 at 17:12
  • We've got a tropical storm heading in and as usual for severe weather in these parts, the locals are acting like it's the end of days ;) It may be a little while before I can write a proper answer but I will start thinking about it.
    – ColleenV
    Jun 16, 2015 at 18:02
  • trust me, for a non-native speaker like Gurpreet, this'll be too much of information! :) It'd rather confuse him. I can assure you this by looking at his 'one word' explanation in Hindi (the national language). What exactly he wants is written in my answer. It's something like he's asking what's verb and we are explaining everything about a verb including 'verb patterns'.
    – Maulik V
    Jun 17, 2015 at 4:58
  • @MaulikV - I do trust you on this, MV, but remember, SE answers are intended to help not only the O.P., but also anyone else who might have a similar question. There may be a "duplicate" question a few months from now; in that case, we'll want to have a comprehensive answer here.
    – J.R. ♦
    Jun 17, 2015 at 10:09
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It's time to go home is certainly idiomatic and would be understood by most.

E.g. If it's the winter break and if we mean GOING back home (moving, in transit) we would say 'Going (back) Home'.

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School children (under about 16 years of age) will talk about 'home time' e.g. "Is it home time yet?". For college & work, you might say "What time do we finish?" or simply "Is it time to go home?. At work, you might ask a colleague "What time are you leaving/finishing today?" and you might tell a colleague "I'm leaving/finishing at 5 today".

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I made a quick search on google to see the statistics for different variations of the sentences you provided. The results were interesting for me. I thought it would be helpful to share what I found with my friends.

1.  When is your departure time?                 About 2,400 results
2.  Has your departure time passed?              1 result
3.  Has your departure time changed?             5 results
4.  My departure time has come now.              1 result

5.  When do you get free from job?               1 result
6.  When do you get free from office?            1 result

7.  When your office gets over?                  4 results
8.  When your school gets over?                  2 results
9.  When your college gets over?                 0 result  

10. What time are you leaving office?            6 results
11. What time are you leaving?                   About 33,800 results

12. I should be leaving the office around        0 result
13. I should be leaving the campus around        0 result
14. I should be leaving the                      About 199,000 results

15. I should be done at the office around        1 result
16. I should be done at the campus               0 result

17. I want us to get out of here by eight.       0 result
18. I want us to get out of here                 About 149,000 results
19. I want to get out of here by                 About 148,000 results

20. Let's be pulling out of the driveway before  0 result
21. Let's pull out of the                        About 13,000 results

22. We should be there a little before           About 7 results
23. We should be there before                    About 322,000 results

24. Is it home time yet?                         About 7,390 results
25. It’s home time.                              About 24,500 results

26. What time do you finish?                     About 49,000 results
27. What time do we finish?                      About 23,000 results

28.  Is it time to go home?                      About 367,000 results
29. Is it time to go?                            About 39,300,000 results

30. What time are you leaving today?             About 2,330 results
31. What time are you leaving?                   About 33,800 results

32. What time are you finishing today?           About 239 results
33. What time are you finishing?                 About 5,040 results

34. I'm leaving at                               About 58,300 results
35. I'm finishing at                             About 3,140 results
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  • These are interesting numbers, so long as everyone reading them doesn't assume that more results implies more correctness. Also, many of these high numbers are often estimates and thoroughly misleading. For example, "We should be there before" shows over 300,000 hits on Page 1, but try scrolling through some of those results. I did, and I encountered this on Page 25: Page 25 of about 245 results – and the second-to-last one was a link to this answer.
    – J.R. ♦
    Jun 17, 2015 at 10:15
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छुट्टी हो गयी

can fit into anything in this context.

For this, the best option is...

'X' is over

and 'x' could be anything you are talking about. Office, college, school, duty, job etc. [Mind it, I'm talking this in our day-to-day life. I'm not concerned about something that gets over permanently -say Her education is over means it's now all done].

Don't use the word 'departure'. It means something different and it's not related to 'छुट्टी' you are talking about.

Even if you want to ask your friend, when is he free from his job/duty, you may informally ask - "When your office/school/college gets over?"

This may seem interesting to you.

You may use an idiom to say - "चलो घर चलते है!"

Let's 'call it a day'

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  • What do you mean by "umbrella term"? I didn't get you there.
    – Gurpreet
    Jun 16, 2015 at 12:42
  • matlab woh har jagah pe use ho sakta hai. @Gurpreet
    – Maulik V
    Jun 16, 2015 at 12:49

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