How to Read a Watch

“When someone asked me for the time, I got nervous trying to figure out a watch, so instead I looked at my cellphone.”

When picking up a watch for the first time, you may be thrown off by all of the numbers, and decide that it’s going to be too much work to figure out, but before you put it down take a moment to learn how to read it. Learning how to read a watch is not only easy, but it is a learning experience. Before you know it, you will be dazzling around time.

I know this because I now work for one of New York’s trendiest watch companies, EOS New York. My first test from the Big Boss, was to test my knowledge on reading time. I thought to myself, this is going to be complicated. Well I was wrong. I have never been a watch person, but was taught otherwise. I learned how to read time. I wear a watch every day now and I don’t have to rely on my phone to tell time.

After learning some tips on reading time, I now dazzle around time and never leave home without my watch. Before we get into reading time we must first learn about watches. The image we have here is a time piece educator. It is made up of different components; you have the case, where you will read the time from, the stylish band, the crown on the side of the face (that allows you to adjust the time), and the three major hands on the case that will inform you of what the time is.
Your three important hands on a watch are the hour hand, the minute hand, and the second hand. The hour hand is always the shorter hand, the minute hand is the longer hand, and the hand that indicates the seconds is always ticking at every second. Inside the case we have a set of numbers that represent hours and minutes. The starting point is always set on the top number. As you go around you can see the numbers 1-12. Between each number there is a 5min interval. Count by 5s from the starting point, clockwise until you’re back at the starting point. You will realize that there are 60 minutes that make up an hour. The same goes for minutes, there are 60 seconds in 1 minute. As the minute hand moves all the way around the clock, the hour hand moves from one hour to the next. For example, in image 1, you can see that the minute hand is in between the number 7 and the number 8, therefore the hour hand will be in between the 3 and the 4 making the time 3:38pm.

Once you have that down packed you can start playing with the crown and practice adjusting the hands to set the time. Be ready to not only be wearing a trendy watch, but to also be a pro in reading time.


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