la phrase anglaise ne correspond pas à la traduction française...

Does it match the Japanese? Or, to put it another way, how would you translate it into English?

I'm not good enough in Japanese to judge, but good enough in French and English to judge that they don't match. "pourrait" is a conditional form that "is it" doesn't convey...

We will wait Scott who speaks both languages to judge if French and Japanese match. (or anyone who's able to tell us before him)

The Japanese literally means "What hour is it?" but its actual use is to ask "What time is it?"

The use of でしょう here is probably to 'soften' the question so as not to sound blunt or demanding. If you were to literally translate the でしょう part then the sentence would mean something like "I wonder what time it might be?" but I think that is overdoing things.

French is nearly the second of your options, so I think it would be oki to leave everything like it is now.

"French is nearly the second of your options"

What does that mean ?

I believe that Pharamp means that the French example, "Quelle heure pourrait-il être ?" is nearly the same as "What time is it?"

but it just isn't the same...

No, I meant "I wonder what time it might be?".
We need a Japanese >and< French speaker, so just be patient for now :)

> No, I meant "I wonder what time it might be?".

That was my third option, not second. :-P

Anyway it looks to me like the Japanese is a good match for the French and the English, but the English is not a good match for the French.

So it should be OK like it is (baring what Scott, or whoever, has to say anyway).

"Anyway it looks to me like the Japanese is a good match for the French and the English, but the English is not a good match for the French."

+1

Scott, please translate the French into English and the English into French :)

The case is quite clear cut:
The English just asks what time it is, but the French conditional implies that the person who is wondering has absolutely no notion of time, like this person would be stuck underground, without seeing the sun, and wondering what time it could be.
So we have 2 different meanings here.
Otherwise, the correct translation to "What time is it ?" in French is "Quelle heure est-il"

The English has been translated twice into French already. As for the French, "What time is it?" is a good enough translation.

I don't think so: "What time is it?" doesn't convey the idea of total ignorance that "Quelle heure pourrait-il être ?" does. "What time is it?" translates in French to "Quelle heure est-il ?". "Quelle heure pourrait-il être ?" is something else.
Tenses serve purposes.
I know it is sometimes difficult to make correspondences, but in this case, French and English are close enough not to confuse them.