Let's use 3:15 and 2:45 for our examples.
In English you can say a quarter past/to three.
In Chinese you can use 一刻, 3点(差)一刻
In both English and Chinese you can use the ''quarter'' version as well as stating the minutes explicitly.
It seems that 一刻 (いっこく) used to exist in Japanese but has fallen out of recognition. In other words a Japanese person wouldn't even understand you if you said 3:15 , 3時一刻 , 3じいっこく , but they would understand once you explained it to them and be like ''we don't say it that way''.
Can anyone confirm this ?
How would 一刻 have been used ? And how would the 差 have worked ?