Will take

[Offroad]

Dear teachers

Do these sentences have the same meaning?

It’s impossible to predict how long it will take to do this job.
There's no telling of how long this job will take.

Thank you

 

[probus]

Yep.

To make it perfect I would omit of in the second sentence.

 

[Offroad]

Does the particle 'of' make the sentence sound odd?

Thank you

 

[Rover_KE]

IMO, 'of' makes the sentence wrong.

 

[probus]

"Tell of" is a phrasal verb, mainly literary, meaning to talk about.

 

[emsr2d2]

There's no telling how long it will take.
There's no telling when the next bus will come.
There's no telling what he'll do when he finds out.
There's no telling who might turn up on the night.

As you can see, we don't use "of" in this construction where "There's no telling" means "It's impossible to predict".