How are you with reading clocks?

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It took me longer than normal to be able to read a clock. I was nervous when I was little that someone would ask me "what time is it?" I was afraid of looking dumb of course.

I'm fine with clocks now, but I was late learning to tell the time as a child. My mother says that I did a weird thing where I seemed to be reading the clock backwards: e.g., I would guess twenty minutes past five as being twenty minutes to seven.

I get a bit confused with the points of the compass as well.

I learned to do it late and I still take a bit too long to read them sometimes.

I also prefer digital ones but only if they're on 12-hour mode.

I like digital clock. I can barely read a regular one. Give me digital or military time and I am fine.

I can read the time easily, took me longer than most people though.

I have trouble reading digital clocks, I read numbers instead of the hour.

My digital clock show the date and the temperature so there is a lot of digits and the other day I looked at the clock and read it like an electronic card game.

I've never had a problem with telling time. I've been doing it as long as I can remember. My pre-school teacher had even said I was "outstanding" with it. Math, on the other hand, is something I absolutely suck at.

wait. This isn't how most people read clock?
Because I still have to count.

Or maybe you would find, shortly after you tried it, that you don't prefer it at all, because a base-twelve sort of day can be straightforwardly divided into many more different arrangements of work-shifts that end and begin cleanly and unconfusingly on the hour. One third of a dodecal day is eight hours, while one third of a decimal day is 3.3333 etc hours. I imagine this would annoy people, even the French.

Base twelve is more sensible in general, really.

I do not believe so (notice how quickly many people can "tell the time" and compare to the length of time it takes to manually work out the time by counting in 5s around the clock face).
I think most people simply can "see" what time it is by looking at a clock face (no working out required), much like I know that letter "A" when I see it (I do not have to list off its component parts, consider how they are structured together and decide whether or not it is the letter "A", when I see the letter "A" I recognize it as a whole).

I think most people might be able to look at the clock and simply recognize the information presented as a whole just from sight alone (without considering the individual parts and calculating their individual meanings to arrive at an understanding of the whole).

Me too.

I could read analogue clocks when I was 7 or so. Last year I went through a 'phase' though.

I'll give a clue what kind of phase. I was studying and taking notes on the angles involved on a clock face. 6 degrees for every second/minute, 30 degrees for every 5 seconds/minutes or 1 hour. etc. I was getting into the finer points of the hour hand rotating 1 degree every 2 minutes.

I also used a simple calculation to conclude that if a pentagram were drawn on a clock face, the points would be at 12, 24, 36, 48 and 00 minutes.

I had (and still have) no idea why I would ever find any of it useful, but hey I was interested.

Someone mentioned maps? I can get lost in a map. Sitting for hours studying my local area from above is something of a pastime for me. If I go anywhere, I either have a map, or the imprint in my head from staring at one. Reading them for me is like yawning for anyone else. Not just easy, instinctive. I know the central postcodes of London like the back of my hand, mainly from all the hard study I put into my old job as a pushbike courier.

((((hugs))))

~Loving Light~

weird.

I just assumed that everyone read clocks by doing the 5, 10, 15, 20 thing. I mean, what about the little numbers? So some people can look and know its 2:15 or 2:30 easily enough. But what if its 2:13? or 2:43? Don't they have to count then?

My partner tells me that he knows at a glance, and if it between the 5's, he just rounds up to the next five. So if the clock displayed 2:13, he would glance and know it was between 2:10 and 2:15 and to him this means it is approximately 2:15.

Delurking to say I am so glad to hear I'm not alone in this --- seriously, I'm doing a little dance of joy right now. I have always had trouble reading analog clocks and watches (of course, my family thinks it's hilarious). Like others said up-thread, I have to concentrate and figure out the time each time I look at my watch, counting by fives and then guessing between the tick-marks. I've gotten faster at as I got older, of course, but it's still a pain. I also have trouble estimating time. Ten minutes might feel like an hour, or an hour like ten minutes. Which probably explains why one of the most common complaints from my teachers in school was "Doesn't do well with time management."

Insert heavy sigh here.

^

Congrats on your first post, former lurker!! My husband makes fun of me for it too. I can laugh at myself in this instance because I know it's such a simple thing that others can just 'do.' I actually started a similar thread a couple of months ago but didn't get nearly as many responses as this one. This is a good thread.

Hope to see more of you

Count the little tick marks, yes. If there are none, pretend there are tickmarks.

I know 15, 30, and 45, and work from there. I never had any substantial problem with it.