Telling time with a clock .

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I've a question - I can read clocks no problem but I think its pointless because everyone I know is always bloody late.

Anyways, do any of you know WHY its so hard to read a clock?

Yes. And they had digital watches as well. I had a mechanical digital watch.

I had a hard time learning how to tell time. I remember my elementary school teacher (I forgot what grade though) giving a lesson on telling time. She made it into a kind of game. If you were the first person to tell what time it was on the clock she was holding up, you could go get a drink of water first. You weren't allowed to go get water until you had successfully told the time. I was nearly the last person in the room to get it By the time I guessed right, other students had been to the water fountain multiple times. It was definitely one of my most embarrassing moments of elementary school.

Same here.

I learnt to read digital clocks when I was 3, I knew to count from 1 to 60

Analog clocks (with hands)? I was 5 when I learnt it.

It took me until I was 9. Also, I couldn't remember which was left and which was right until that age.
I was looking through some old school papers from when I was 7/8, and there was a huge discrepancy between my usual work and anything to do with clocks:
My usual work: 2-3 years ahead of what would have been typical for my age level (3-9 years ahead if the task was purely reading-based) with 90-100% accuracy.

Work with clocks- At my year level, with around 45% accuracy.

Im in my 40s and still sometimes get the hands mixed up on a clock! When my aspie son was about 6 yo his grandmother was trying to teach to read a clock . She pointed to the clock and asked him if he could tell what time it was . He looked at the clock and said " I can't read Roman Grandma" The clock had Roman numerals on it! How aspie of an answer was that! I thought how clever he is.

watch or clocks with numbers like this 14:23 24 hour time those round clocks take too much space and the ticking or whirring is annoying to me i do not like to hear time past with tick sounds.

I took some time to tell time. But then I got it, and although I still do not read one in a flash, I love real timepieces with hands. Hands along with a visible sun make a decent impromptu compass.

I also like 24hr. time.

And I love watches. Despite neing female, I wear a heavy chronograph.

THAT WAS ME! When I was little, all the clocks in the apartment where my parents lived were analog, which is with hands. Like aylissa pointed out, I learned to associate time with the hands. I memorized the positions of the big hand and the little hand for each time of day. First, I learned the hours, which in my mind, was the direction the hour hand was pointing. The minutes were a little easier, since I could see the minute hand change positions within the observable time period. The seconds changed continuously, so I never bothered to associate the direction of the second hand with time. Using my ingenious method, I could tell time to the exact minute before I even turned four.

Later on, after I learned the numbers, I filled in each direction of the hands on the clock with a numerical time value (1 thru 12 for hours, and 1 thru 60 for minutes). Everyone in my family was amazed by my ability to tell time, and getting me to stay in bed longer than the scheduled time was futile effort, to say the least.

I prefer digital clocks to analogue ones.

I actually like the analog much more, but it may be because of the mystery. I know that both are kind of hard for me to understand though. But then again, so is time.

Me as a two year old:
"Quick! Mum! We've got to get home! Tim's bus comes home from school at 3:00 remember?" *Points to analogue clock reading 12:15* "We've got to be home to get him!"

I can tell the time easily by looking at my watch if I wear it upside down. I accidentally discovered that one year ago when I decided to have a go at wearing my watch myself and wore it upside down. Otherwise it takes me about 10 seconds to understand the time and 15 seconds to vocalise it. That's why I prefer wearing my own watch because it's easy to figure out... usually, if you ask people what time it is, they show you their watch. I hate it when they do that... I struggle so much that they always end up telling me what time it is themselves, something they could have done at the beginning to spare me the trouble.

I tend to be overly precise when telling time. If somebody asks, I'll say, for example almost 9, when it is 8:59. It doesn't sound as weird that way.

I don't seem to have much trouble with telling time. What drives me bonkers is when I see an analog clock with an hour hand that's out of alignment.

Example: In elementary school, the entry way had a battery operated wall clock, and sometimes, when it was supposed to be 2:30, the minute hand would be on the six, but instead of being between the 2 and the 3, the hour hand would be exactly on the 3!
Has anyone else experienced that?