Is "Que hora es?" or "Que horas son?" preferred?

Question

Admittedly, it has been a *very* long time since I've studied Spanish, but I distinctly recall that we always used "Que hora es?" for "what time is it?". However, on a trip to the Dominican Republic, I asked our tour guide "Que hora es?", and he corrected me, saying "Que horas son?" is the internationally recognized proper grammar. He mentioned that he was training to be a multilingual instructor of Spanish, English, and German, and that his phrasing was authoritatively correct per his training. I find the phrasing of that strange, not only because I was taught the other way. My literal translation of that seems to be "what hours are they?". The tour guide's explanation was that the hours of the day are plural, and therefore using the singular is incorrect. However, to my mind the Que hora es?" form is asking "what *hour* is it?", as in "it is the 5th hour", which makes more sense to me than "there are 5 hours". Is one phrase correct and the other incorrect, or are both acceptable? Also, is my understanding of the translations correct (i.e. "what hour is it" vs. "what hours are they")?

Answer 1

I would say both are correct.

‘Qué horas son’ can be correct if you already know that it can’t be one o’clock. You’re already planning for the response to be multiple hours.

However, if you’re asking for the time and you truly don’t know what time it is (there is a possibility it could be one) you should say ‘Qué hora es’.

In general, ‘Qué hora es’ is much much more widely understood and used.