Telling Time — How Do You Tell Time?
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Try It: See Any Time on the Clock
Type a time, such as 3:25, and click Show the Time.
Step 1: Read the Hour
The first step in learning to tell time is to ignore the long (minute) hand. Look at the short hand. It tells the hour. If the short hand is pointing to the 8 and the long hand is on the 12, then it is 8 o’clock.
When the short hand is halfway between the 8 and the 9, then it is half past 8.
Step 2: Read the Minutes
After you figure out the hour, the next step is to figure out the minutes. When the long (minute) hand is on the 3, it is a quarter of the way around the clock, so we say it is a quarter past the hour. When it is on the 6, it is halfway around, and we say it is half past the hour. If the minute hand is on the 9, it is a quarter until the next hour begins, so we say a quarter till.
This clock shows a quarter past 10.
An hour on the clock is equal to 60 minutes. A quarter of 60 is 15 minutes. Another way of saying a quarter past 10 is to say it is 15 minutes past 10, or 10:15.
Step 3: Count by 5s
You can read other times on the clock using the hour and the minute hands. Start with the short hour hand. Read the number that it is pointing to or that it has just passed. On this clock, the short hand has just passed the number 5.
Next, look at the long hand. There are 60 minutes on a clock. It would take you a long time to count all the minutes. One shortcut is to count by 5s. Start at the 1 and count by 5s until you reach the long hand. On this clock, the minute hand is pointing to the 8, which is 40 minutes around from the 12.
This clock says 5:40, or 40 minutes after 5.
Another way of reading this clock is to count how long it will be until the next hour. The next hour is 6 o’clock. It takes 5 minutes for the minute hand to get to the 9. Then count 10, 15, 20 to reach the top, or 12, on the clock. We can say that it is 20 minutes until 6 o’clock.
This clock says 9:55, or 5 minutes until 10 o’clock.
Step 4: Read the Minutes Between the 5s
The last step is learning to read the minutes between the 5s. It is best to have a clock with the minutes marked off.
This clock has the minutes marked off between the 4 and the 5. Each mark equals 1 minute. The minute hand is 2 marks past the 20, so we can call it 22.
This clock says 5:22, or 22 minutes after 5.