Telling the Time

now a lot of you will know how to tell the time
and a lot wont. and some will struggle.

now this lesson is a complex lesson to show you how to tell the time in English using an analog clock

Telling the time can be very simple and complicated for some.
I have had advanced students battle with this and begginers exceed.
So doesnt matter who or how you are but just can be hard for anyone.
So i have given some pointers in telling the time(in English).

we all know there are 60 minutes in an hour
so before you carry on with this lesson make sure you know how to say the numbers from 1 - 60
its very easy  and this website will help you do this

http://www.englishclub.com/kids/numbers-chart.htm
and if you need any help with  youur pronunciation with counting please goto
www.howjsay.com



Now we all know that the long hand represents the minute hand
and the short one is the hour hand






Now with the long hand/minute hand, what ever the long hand is on we count how many minutes we have experienced of the hour

When ever the long hand/minute hand is on the 12 and the hour hand is on any hour
we always say the hour O' Clock
for example
12:00 = 12 O' clock
1:00= 1 O' clock


this is the only time we will say O' Clock

When it's "on the hour" we say "o'clock". But only when it's on the hour.

so as we can see with this clock above we have experienced 10 minutes of the hour.
the hour is 10

so it has been 10 minutes past the hour of 10

so we say it is 10 minutes past 10 in the afternoon/morning. or 10 past 10

in digital time the time is 10:10/ 22:10 depending weather its PM/AM





look at this image above.

imagine the big hand(minute hand)
as you can see where ever the big hand is we say the following


here is another example of what we say where we can see the minute hand.

we can split the clock into two.

"Past" side

"To" Side


when ever the big hand is on the past side we talk about how many minutes we have experienced of the hour.

example 5 minutes past 10/ (5 past 10)
               10 minutes past 10/ (10 past 10)
               20 minutes past 10/ (20 past 10)
               when ever we hit the 15 minutes mark
              we can say 15 minutes past 10/ (15 past 10)
              but the correct way would be
              Quarter Past 10
              we have experienced the first quarter of the hour

as you can see once we have experienced the first half an hour or the first 30 minutes of the hour we will always say it is half past the hour for example

half past 10
in digital time this will be 10:30/22:30

we don't say 30 past ten we always say half past 10 or what ever the small/hour hand is on
in digital time this will be 10:30/22:30






now as you can see this image again.
when we past half an hour or half past the hour we dont talk about the minutes we have experienced.

we become excited for the next hour :) 
and we start counting down till the next hour

so as we go past the half an hour mark we start saying how many minutes are left till the next hour!!!




so as you can see in the image above.

we have experienced 55 minutes of the hour or nearly but we usually just round it off and say we have :)

we wouldnt say 55 minute past 11 because remember we dont care about how much time we have experienced we excited bout the next hour and how much time we have left :)

so we will say its 5 minutes to 12 or 5 to 12
because we have 5 more minutes and then its 12 O' clock! !!! ! YAY!!!

every time the long/minute hand passes the half and hour mark or the half past mark we start saying "to".
and how many minute we have till the next hour.


looking at this image again
we can see that after half past we start using "to" because we want to know how many minutes we have left till the next hour!

and if the hour was 10 minutes past ten/10 past 10 and 40 minutes went past then it will go on to the next hour and we will say its 10 minutes to 11.

because we have 10 more minutes and then it will be 11 O' Clock!!!!!!!!

 
now when we go onto the next quarter 
exactly like we did before for the quarter past but we say quarter to and then the next hour

so if it was quarter past 10 

and half an hour goes by and then we will say it is

quarter to 11


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here are some examples of the time in analog 
to help you














please email at forsythdustin@gmail.com if you want to know more about telling the time
 i have posted some links to help you practice

all pictures were sourced by Google images.