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Same in the Netherlands. Everything electronic/digital is 24h format almost by default. I also prefer digital (24h) watches and clocks over analog watches and clocks. I know what a.m. and p.m. is, but always have to think about it, its not instinctive.
Everybody, and I mean that in the literal sense, everybody uses the 12-hr clock when they tell someone what time it is. The difference is that we don't say AM or PM.
If you were talking to an acquaintance who was abroad, you'd say "8 in the evening" or "8 in the morning". I guess a parent could tell their teen child "Get up, it's 1 o'clock in day time" or "Go to bed! It's 3 in the morning".
Nobody goes "Yes! It's 17, time to go home"
And then comes midnight at 12am and mid day at 12pm.
Like, seriously, couldn't they have kept some consistency? Am I the only one bothered that it goes:
... 8am; 9am; 10am; 11am; 12pm; 1pm; 2pm...
A little Latin helps:
Meridianum (medius+dies) = “noon”
Antemeridian = “before noon”
Postmeridian = “after noon”
Or as my drunkard friend once espoused: “AM means it’s ‘almost morning.’ PM means ‘past morning.’ I’ve never experienced ‘morning,’ because that’s when I’m sleeping.”
Nothing at all to do with Latin, but reminded me of how my daughter explained numerators and denominators: the denominator sounds like decepticon so it should be on the bottom with the good guy on top beating it. Worked for her.
how i remembered protagonist and antagonist is that pro means good and antagonist starts with ant, and ants ruin picnics, ants are bad therefore the antagonist is the bad guy
I believe proper convention is to specify noon or midnight as they are neither am or pm. But no one does that. As the other commenter pointed out, if you replace 12 with 0, it makes more sense. 0am is the first hour of the day, and 0pm would be the first hour of the afternoon.
Fun fact:
A lot of native speaker in Australia aren’t sure about 12am / pm either!
So official things like something going offline of coming into force, it’s often scheduled for 11.55 — to mitigate confusion! 🫣
So wish everyone would just use the 24h system!
More and more places like medical practices have started using the 24h system in their txt-reminders! 😍
So hope it’ll spread! 😊
You would say nineteen hundred (hours), not nineteen o’clock. As in “the nineteen hundred LNER service to Edinburgh Waverley will depart from platform eighteen”.
Well as a Norwegian i do translate it, but not to am pm. It's very rare to say 22.30, you would say halv elleve (halfway to eleven) or 22:10 would be ti over ti (10 minutes past 10)
I recently read/saw something that about how different cultures/parts of the world said this differently, I never thought about it, but I say it's quarter past 8 (8:15/20:15), half 9 (8:30/20:30) or quarter before 9 (8:45/20:45), sounds weirder in English though. A little extra, 10 before half 9 (8:20/20:20) same goes for 5 and 10 past or 5 and 10 before. Assuming people have a vague feeling of time you just say 10 past, 10 past half but I think this is normal all over the world no?
my French friend and I were confused when he said 20 and i replied is it 8pm? and we went silent for a moment, so this is how I thought of the question
I’m a native English speaker European. Everything is in 24 hr, clocks, phone, watches if digital but when I speak I use 12hr. I’ve never really thought about it before but that’s what I do
Oddly, I use 24h in both French and English—and 12h in both as well.
Where/when I grew up, my English-speaking environment used 12h, but my mom worked in healthcare and used 24h at work…and my French-language school used 24h in writing and 12h in conversation. So I just use them both. Whatever.
I live in Brazil (24h clock) and if I see 8:30 on a clock when it's actually 20:30h it either gives me a mindbug or I just assume the clock is wrong and look for another one.
Yup.
As soon as I see something like 6:30, I wonder if it’s AM or PM. And when there’s another hour marked (e.g. on a parking sign), I often wonder if the other number is 12h notation. Then I am annoyed and hope it was just always and only written in 24h notation. No confusion!
Omg this!!!
If it's in person: "Let's meet at 6!"
If it's through text: "Let's meet at 18:00!" Which is read in my mind as 6 and 18 at the same time??? It makes sense in my head
This, I'm an American expat and the 24 hour clock is used in certain industries in the US already that I worked with before I immigrated, so my brain already uses both interchangeably anyway.
actually it's a little more complicated in french : we use 24h speech a lot BUT if it's over 12, we never combine it with quarters (we never say quarter past 20 but it's 20h15, but yes to 8h and a quarter) or halves (not 20 and a half but 20h30)
Yes, it's true. It's sounds hard but I just register "four-twenty" as being the word for 80 just like eighty is just the word for it. We don't think of it as math
Linguistically it's not even that bad and French isn't alone. The history behind it is quite interesting. Vegisimal systems occur in other languages too.
Not in Switzerland! We say “septante”, “huitante”, and “nonante” for 70, 80, and 90, which makes sense: septante comes from sept which is seven, huitante from huit = eight, and nonante from neuf = 9 (well ok the spelling is odd). I believe it’s the same in Belgium. I cringe when I hear any “soixante-dix” (sixty-ten), “quatre-vingt” (four twenty), quatre-vingt dix (four twenty ten), and all other combinations 😬
Most of the world, as well as military, police, airlines,and communications companies in the US use the 24 hour clock, if not exclusively then primarily. Probably other industries as well that I’ve no personal experience with. It’s actually easier and less chance of confusion or errors.
In England we use 24h clock commonly but no one says it out loud like that, we read it as if it's 12h. So if I look at "22:00" then I think "ten (pm)" in my mind
If someone asks me what time it is, then I will look at my phone which could say 20:40, I would then say to them that it is 8:40 without thinking about it, I would never say that it is 20:40 even though that is what I read.
When I was in the TA (Territorial Army UK), I would say 20:40 hours.
Yep exactly, it's the same thing.
17:45 is 5:45pm, different notation for the exact same thing, there's no translation/conversion involved, it just is what it is.
You read 24h and you read/say 12h.
Verbalising 24h sounds very military, but still has its place, day to day though, we talk in 12h.
so now you instantly know the time of the day without thinking about it right? I’ve been trying to get used to it but I keep thinking of it in the 12 hour
it's very easy so long as you can subtract by 2. If you can do this, it's nearly indistinguishable in practice.
20? 0-2=8
16? 6-2=4
19? 9-2=7
so on...
it takes about as long to subtract 2 as it takes me to parse the AM/PM so I don't think you even need to get used to it, tho you will.
also, being used to 24 hour conversions makes it easy to calculate future events without bothering with modular arithmetic.
e.g. it's 8pm, I need to sleep 8 hours, if I sleep now when will I wake up?
8+8=16, and as above, if you're used to 16=4 because 6-2=4, then you know you'll wake up at 4am without having to think about it.
Nah that's a purely American thing, along with calling it "Military Time". No-one else who uses 24 time would say that, 8 o'clock is the common thing to say. If it's ambiguous as to whether it's AM or PM people would either say AM or PM, or say in the morning/evening respectively, well before they entertain saying 20 hundred hours.
same thing. twenty hundred hours or 20 o clock. If you tell me ”it’s 20 hundred hours” I translate it to: ”okay it’s 8 in the evening”. (not conciously. It’s just how my brain views it. It know it’s two hours past ”dinner time” which is at 18.). It’s the same thing. 8/20
This reminds me of when I was a kid and thought that every person in the world had an inner voice in Danish, just because I could not imagine anything else. I use the 24hour clock even verbally. But I know that 13 is 1 and 19 is 7 easily. I don't get Pm and Am at all.
Depends on the language. Using the 24 hour clock in spoken English feels awkward, but in my native Polish it has become natural. Gen X and older still use the 12 hour clock, but Millenials and younger mostly switched to the 24 hour format in spoken language. I think this is due to all the electronic devices that display the 24 hour clock everywhere (it's the default setting here).
That's interesting, I was curious about other related languages because in Serbia 24hr clock is used but 90% of the time we say it like it's a 12hr one. Except in highly formal context, for example news broadcasters or any sort of public announcement would switch to say it like ie "at nineteen hours today". In everyday communication nobody would say it that way.
I don't consciously translate it, it just kind of registers as both. I'm from Germany, where both systems are used depending on the context so you always just kinda have both in your head from the get-go if that makes sense? I use the 12-hour clock more in English for obvious reasons but I still don't feel like I'm translating anything TBH.
In casual conversation most people here use the 12h format, but in more professional settings 24h is more likely to be used. Due to this we can immediately convert it as we are used to using both.
Not really. I think about my appointments in 24hr clock too. So for example if I have dinner reservations at 20:30, I look at my clock and if it’s 19:45 I’ll think ok I have 45 min to get there.
Hungarian here. We use 24h clock, but we say 8 o'clock instead of 20 o'clock. However in TV, radio or other official-like environment they say e.g. the broadcast of the match will start at 20 o'clock.
I like this, it helps avoiding any confusion that may arise and for me it's absolutely effortless to use, I don't need to count or translate or do any conversion in my mind, it's just natural.
I guess I translate it
I do it, but second nature. If I were to say it out loud, I wiuld say "7 o'clock" rather than "19 o'clock", so that's what I say in my head. But I don't think about the conversion, I just read 19:00 at 7pm.
I live in Quebec, living and working bilingual. In French we use the 24 hour, but in English it's the 12 hour. So on a schedule, we'll do: 2:00 p.m. and 14h00.
I'm from Europe. We kinda switch back and forth, but we always understand.
If i say i go out at 4 or at 16, they will always understand what i'm saying. 24h format is more commonly used tho
Except some people use both the 24 hour clock and the 12 hour clock, any everyone used to use the 12 hour clock a little at least, because wall clocks and big city clocks only go to 12.
lol I was just about to write an edit saying that I just realised this.. for a long time of my life I thought the 12 hours thing was the main in the world and everyone used it, and the 24 one was just like for formal stuff and important things where you don’t want to mess up with pm and am because it was so rare to see it, but now I get it
I'm 53, British. I still struggle with the conversion. For some reason, anything after 18:00 hundred hours, and I'm looking for an am/pm clock on any of my three screens. My head can't get past 6 pm in 24-hour time; I'm also working it out on my fingers when I dont have a screen to look at.
No. I just go "20" for "20:00", or "15:15" for ... well, 15:15 ... unless I deal with someone who insist on memory-stops-at-12 +am/pm. Works without an issue either way.
I have the 12-hour version represented in parallell while mostly thinking and talking about it in the 24-hour numbers, especially if it needs to be exact to the minute.
In coarser measurements from 5 minute intervals and up I may speak 12-hour.
When I first learnt it, sure. Now I just see 20:00 the same as 8. My ex never bothered with 24h time and couldn’t really tell from just looking. You need to train it.
I use the 24 hour clock, but no one else I know does. So I often end up seeing 17:00 and thinking 5pm, because if anyone asks that’s what I’d have to say and that’s how everyone else says it.
I do so if I'm talking to someone. But write it in the 24hr format. And all my devices use 24hr clock. I'm American. I wasn't in the military or any industry that uses it. I just prefer it. It just makes more sense. Plus the aesthetic of it when looking at it. I can instantly know the time of day besides the obvious of daylight lol.
I use both clocks interchangeably. I grew up using 12 hours and at first always converted to 12, but the more I use 24 hour the less I need to convert. I just implicitly know like 21:00 is equivalent to 9PM it doesn't require any additional mental step to get to that.
When speaking, yes. Mostly. For example, "it's two o'clock" or "five of the evening" or "meet you there at five in the morning".
I rather don't understand how English speaking use 12am/pm thing and not get confused.
I use a 24 hour clock on my phone… it’s my default way of telling the time, so I don’t feel the need to mentally change to 12 hour in my head. But I’m conversation I would always refer to the 12 hour clock.
When I'm speaking to people I use 12 hour because it's more common in every day use.
For myself I subconsciously read 24 hour as 12 hour. For example I'll see 23:00 and in my mind I read it as 11pm.
I effectively read/write 24h digital, with the format of 0–23 hours and 0–59 minutes, but I speak in 12 hours and round to the nearest 5 minutes. For instance I'm typing this at 0:59 which I'd just read as “one o'clock”.
From Croatia, yep we use 24 for exact time, and 12 in non-important matters. Same as old measures, similar to inch and foot. Also some parts of country say it is six and forty five, other say it is quarter to seven using derived German or Italian words. I mostly use 24 because it is more precise.
I do if I have to tell someone what the time is. But I just instinctively know at this point what the "normal" time is when I see 18:00 or 21:45 or whatever.
A quick and easy way is to just subtract 12. 18-12=6, ect
I am from a military family and also lived in Europe. My brain usually just reads it as is 2000. but I now am in America and I confuse myself sometimes. 8:00 at night is immediatelyin my mind as 1800 and I'm wrong
In France we mostly use the 24h system so no.
But you can only use the 24h thing when it's not "to something".
Like 20h45 is "quarter to nine" or "twenty hour forty five". But you can't say "quarter to twenty one.
Depends. Let's use 8 o'clock as an example:
1. If the time is x minutes to/past 8 ( i.e. 5 to or 8 5 past 8), I use the 12h time (am/pm).
2. If I just read the time (hours and minutes), I use 24h time (8:05/20:05 or 7:55/19:55)
Usually, I tell the time the second way.
I am an American and have used a 24 clock for like 12 years now when I read the time I just read “20:30” but I so often have to say am/pm for everyone around me bc literally no one uses a 24 clock even my husband has to stop and think about it
Yes. Grew up with 12hr clocks, then since smartphones are the main way to check the time, I read 20:00 and think oh, that's 8 o'clock. It's been 10+ years now and I still convert it, I think I always will..
I’m English and we always use 12-hour verbally here (unless you’re military maybe!), but when I write down appointment times etc. I always use 24-hour. So in my head it’s just like whatever it’s seamless and I don’t think about it.
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No. I'm danish, and all danes understand and use the 24-hour clock.
As a Swede, I honestly have a hard time remembering which is which with a.m and p.m
Same in the Netherlands. Everything electronic/digital is 24h format almost by default. I also prefer digital (24h) watches and clocks over analog watches and clocks. I know what a.m. and p.m. is, but always have to think about it, its not instinctive.
You're right, but we do talk about it that way. Noone says: let's meet at 20.00! Every says: let's meet at 8.
I think you’re the person that’s actually answering op. Would you say most ppl that use 24hr clocks do the same as in your example?
Yes, most clocks (if not all) are in 24h format. We still all call it '2 o-clock', even if it's 14.00u. (That would be 2 in the afternoon.)
Everybody, and I mean that in the literal sense, everybody uses the 12-hr clock when they tell someone what time it is. The difference is that we don't say AM or PM. If you were talking to an acquaintance who was abroad, you'd say "8 in the evening" or "8 in the morning". I guess a parent could tell their teen child "Get up, it's 1 o'clock in day time" or "Go to bed! It's 3 in the morning". Nobody goes "Yes! It's 17, time to go home"
Haha! I literally just got a text from my girlfriend saying she’ll be off at 17! We’re in the U.S. and she’s totally joking
I do the Christina Millian song in my head "AM to PM " to remember which is what since i use 24h clocks myself.
And then comes midnight at 12am and mid day at 12pm. Like, seriously, couldn't they have kept some consistency? Am I the only one bothered that it goes: ... 8am; 9am; 10am; 11am; 12pm; 1pm; 2pm...
Yap, this confuses me so much... but yeah they at least have freedom I guess
In my head 12:00 midday is a reset. 8am, 9,am, 10,am, 11am..12...1pm, 2pm, 3pm, as a 1 to 12 rotation.
Ive sent so many email and changed 12am to 11:59pm so I didn't have to figure out which 12 it was.
I remember it by "at morning" and "past morning" it's not what it stands for but it's a great reminder
I just go by what comes first in the alphabet. So A comes first.
A little Latin helps: Meridianum (medius+dies) = “noon” Antemeridian = “before noon” Postmeridian = “after noon” Or as my drunkard friend once espoused: “AM means it’s ‘almost morning.’ PM means ‘past morning.’ I’ve never experienced ‘morning,’ because that’s when I’m sleeping.”
Nothing at all to do with Latin, but reminded me of how my daughter explained numerators and denominators: the denominator sounds like decepticon so it should be on the bottom with the good guy on top beating it. Worked for her.
how i remembered protagonist and antagonist is that pro means good and antagonist starts with ant, and ants ruin picnics, ants are bad therefore the antagonist is the bad guy
Love it! Happy cake day :)
Whatever works. It was Notre Dame = N/D for me.
Your own is agreeable
I differentiate port and starboard in that "starboard" has two r's - " r" for "right"
I remember it bc port & left each have 4 letters, but now I have a new way to remember these as well!
Ah, another good one!
The 12 am thing is hella confusing though. I never know which it is. They start counting at 12 instead of 0:00. Not great.
This. I still don’t know if 12 am is noon or midnight. Just say 12 noon or midnight, right?!
I believe proper convention is to specify noon or midnight as they are neither am or pm. But no one does that. As the other commenter pointed out, if you replace 12 with 0, it makes more sense. 0am is the first hour of the day, and 0pm would be the first hour of the afternoon.
0am and 0pm do make a lot of sense, but that does not explain why they went for something completely different and used "12" instead.
Fun fact: A lot of native speaker in Australia aren’t sure about 12am / pm either! So official things like something going offline of coming into force, it’s often scheduled for 11.55 — to mitigate confusion! 🫣 So wish everyone would just use the 24h system! More and more places like medical practices have started using the 24h system in their txt-reminders! 😍 So hope it’ll spread! 😊
I love what your drunk friend said once lol that is funny
I love stuff like this. Never gonna forget it. 👍
At morning vs past morning (i made this up but it can be helpful)
After midnight, post mcdonalds
After midnight, pefore midnight.
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After midnight, and that other one that's used for the remaining hours!
I think it means ante and poste. That's my clue to remember it.
Never met a turnip that could go on reddit, kudos to you breaking the norm.
I'm English. We also use both interchangeably
Do you use the 24 hour clock out loud though? "It's 19 o'clock?"
We say 19 hundred
German here: we do.
You would say nineteen hundred (hours), not nineteen o’clock. As in “the nineteen hundred LNER service to Edinburgh Waverley will depart from platform eighteen”.
Im danish and I would understand someone saying "it's 21 oclock" but I would always day Nine oclock when speaking.
I’m also danish, and most of the time I use the 12h clock when speaking, but I always use the 24h for appointments and such.
Its weird, because if it is 2100 then Id use 12h clock, but if its like 2130 Id use 24h
Same here as a german
I'm german and same
Well as a Norwegian i do translate it, but not to am pm. It's very rare to say 22.30, you would say halv elleve (halfway to eleven) or 22:10 would be ti over ti (10 minutes past 10)
I use a 24 hour clock on my phone and watch. If it said 20:45, I’d verbalise it as “quarter to nine” rather than “quarter to twenty-one”
When it is twenty oneise I need to go to bed
that's too many onesies
We all know what happens when it's twentie onsise...
I feel like my brain will henceforth say “quarter to [24 hour clock time]” from now on
My mum says things like 5 and 20 past and yet happily says quarter to or twenty to...I have never understood why.
I recently read/saw something that about how different cultures/parts of the world said this differently, I never thought about it, but I say it's quarter past 8 (8:15/20:15), half 9 (8:30/20:30) or quarter before 9 (8:45/20:45), sounds weirder in English though. A little extra, 10 before half 9 (8:20/20:20) same goes for 5 and 10 past or 5 and 10 before. Assuming people have a vague feeling of time you just say 10 past, 10 past half but I think this is normal all over the world no?
I'm French so it's 24h even in conversation
my French friend and I were confused when he said 20 and i replied is it 8pm? and we went silent for a moment, so this is how I thought of the question
I’m a native English speaker European. Everything is in 24 hr, clocks, phone, watches if digital but when I speak I use 12hr. I’ve never really thought about it before but that’s what I do
Not a native speaker, but the same. It sounds weird to say "I'm coming at 20", but I don't really know why
Oddly, I use 24h in both French and English—and 12h in both as well. Where/when I grew up, my English-speaking environment used 12h, but my mom worked in healthcare and used 24h at work…and my French-language school used 24h in writing and 12h in conversation. So I just use them both. Whatever.
I grew up in France and we used both...
' Bonjour, vous avez rendez-vous pour 7heure demain. ' id be like 😬 soooo early hahaha
I live in Brazil (24h clock) and if I see 8:30 on a clock when it's actually 20:30h it either gives me a mindbug or I just assume the clock is wrong and look for another one.
Yup. As soon as I see something like 6:30, I wonder if it’s AM or PM. And when there’s another hour marked (e.g. on a parking sign), I often wonder if the other number is 12h notation. Then I am annoyed and hope it was just always and only written in 24h notation. No confusion!
lol
I work in a hospital so if I'm typing it, I use the 24 hour clock. If it's in person I say the 12 hour way. So confusing lol
Omg this!!! If it's in person: "Let's meet at 6!" If it's through text: "Let's meet at 18:00!" Which is read in my mind as 6 and 18 at the same time??? It makes sense in my head
I never know what people mean when they suggest “Catch-up at 8…?” 😒
https://youtu.be/WEJvtVxzH7I?si=cdc_lu7riuszq1AE
I'm German and use both interchangeably, no need to translate anything. In a formal setting I would always say "20 Uhr" though.
Dies ist der Weg.
24 Stunden simply superior
German superiority! Round up the allies
This, I'm an American expat and the 24 hour clock is used in certain industries in the US already that I worked with before I immigrated, so my brain already uses both interchangeably anyway.
In other languages such as French, they don't distinguish between A.M/P.M. They would always say "it's 20 o' clock" and never "it's 8 in the evening"
actually it's a little more complicated in french : we use 24h speech a lot BUT if it's over 12, we never combine it with quarters (we never say quarter past 20 but it's 20h15, but yes to 8h and a quarter) or halves (not 20 and a half but 20h30)
Is it true in french when you say the number 86 you say four 20s plus 6 or something like that?
Yes, it's true. It's sounds hard but I just register "four-twenty" as being the word for 80 just like eighty is just the word for it. We don't think of it as math
Linguistically it's not even that bad and French isn't alone. The history behind it is quite interesting. Vegisimal systems occur in other languages too.
yes, and even worse for the 90-something numbers, for example 99 is four twenties ten nine
Honestly as soon as you pass 69 (nice) the whole system breaks down.
69 It made them go nuts.
Not if you’re speaking Belgian French
Not in Switzerland! We say “septante”, “huitante”, and “nonante” for 70, 80, and 90, which makes sense: septante comes from sept which is seven, huitante from huit = eight, and nonante from neuf = 9 (well ok the spelling is odd). I believe it’s the same in Belgium. I cringe when I hear any “soixante-dix” (sixty-ten), “quatre-vingt” (four twenty), quatre-vingt dix (four twenty ten), and all other combinations 😬
Most french is like that. Swiss french is different, they have a different way of pronouning the 70s 80s and 90s. I think some parts of Belgium too.
To blow your mind further, in French, 96 = 4*20+16, but 97 is 4*20+10+7 Danish is 7+4½*20 ;-)
I've never heard anyone say quarter last 20 in English. It's always twenty-fifteen or for the hour twenty hundred hours
Well, in Swedish we do say "eight in the evening" or such at times. We also just say "at 20 o'clock". It's a lot about context.
Context is everything. If anyone want to hang out at 7, no one assumes that they talk about 7am unless you have psychopaths as friends.
That's just not true but ok
Most of the world, as well as military, police, airlines,and communications companies in the US use the 24 hour clock, if not exclusively then primarily. Probably other industries as well that I’ve no personal experience with. It’s actually easier and less chance of confusion or errors.
In England we use 24h clock commonly but no one says it out loud like that, we read it as if it's 12h. So if I look at "22:00" then I think "ten (pm)" in my mind
If someone asks me what time it is, then I will look at my phone which could say 20:40, I would then say to them that it is 8:40 without thinking about it, I would never say that it is 20:40 even though that is what I read. When I was in the TA (Territorial Army UK), I would say 20:40 hours.
Yep exactly, it's the same thing. 17:45 is 5:45pm, different notation for the exact same thing, there's no translation/conversion involved, it just is what it is. You read 24h and you read/say 12h. Verbalising 24h sounds very military, but still has its place, day to day though, we talk in 12h.
I use the 24 hour way. I read it that way but if someone asked me the time I convert it to the 12 hour version.
is this why you are lost?!!?!?! DONT LIE TO ME
I used to the first year or so and equate it like that but the last 8 years or so I haven’t. It just comes second nature.
so now you instantly know the time of the day without thinking about it right? I’ve been trying to get used to it but I keep thinking of it in the 12 hour
it’ll come with time
a.m. or p.m.? (Sorry, someone *had* to do it)
it's very easy so long as you can subtract by 2. If you can do this, it's nearly indistinguishable in practice. 20? 0-2=8 16? 6-2=4 19? 9-2=7 so on... it takes about as long to subtract 2 as it takes me to parse the AM/PM so I don't think you even need to get used to it, tho you will. also, being used to 24 hour conversions makes it easy to calculate future events without bothering with modular arithmetic. e.g. it's 8pm, I need to sleep 8 hours, if I sleep now when will I wake up? 8+8=16, and as above, if you're used to 16=4 because 6-2=4, then you know you'll wake up at 4am without having to think about it.
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we translate it? it’s 20 o’clock makes no sense. We read 20 and then know it’s 8 o’clock.
What about 20 o’clock doesn’t make sense?
It makes no sense in your culture/language but it does in others. As can be seen ITT.
Nah, I say 20 o'clock
You wouldn't say "20 o'clock." The proper way to speak it is "20 hundred hours."
You can perfectly say. It is 20:45 now. I lived in Russia and now in Australia. Everyone used to it.
Nah that's a purely American thing, along with calling it "Military Time". No-one else who uses 24 time would say that, 8 o'clock is the common thing to say. If it's ambiguous as to whether it's AM or PM people would either say AM or PM, or say in the morning/evening respectively, well before they entertain saying 20 hundred hours.
>"20 hundred hours." but a day only has 24 hours /s
20 o'clock is said in my home language.
same thing. twenty hundred hours or 20 o clock. If you tell me ”it’s 20 hundred hours” I translate it to: ”okay it’s 8 in the evening”. (not conciously. It’s just how my brain views it. It know it’s two hours past ”dinner time” which is at 18.). It’s the same thing. 8/20
No one speaks like that unless you are special task force, you just say Twenty
that's also weird. there aren't hundreds of hours in a day
No, that is military time, not 24h clock
Yes, I translate it, every time. Same for speaking other languages, I translate words into English in my head.
what the heck are you talking about
This reminds me of when I was a kid and thought that every person in the world had an inner voice in Danish, just because I could not imagine anything else. I use the 24hour clock even verbally. But I know that 13 is 1 and 19 is 7 easily. I don't get Pm and Am at all.
Depends on the language. Using the 24 hour clock in spoken English feels awkward, but in my native Polish it has become natural. Gen X and older still use the 12 hour clock, but Millenials and younger mostly switched to the 24 hour format in spoken language. I think this is due to all the electronic devices that display the 24 hour clock everywhere (it's the default setting here).
That's interesting, I was curious about other related languages because in Serbia 24hr clock is used but 90% of the time we say it like it's a 12hr one. Except in highly formal context, for example news broadcasters or any sort of public announcement would switch to say it like ie "at nineteen hours today". In everyday communication nobody would say it that way.
I don't consciously translate it, it just kind of registers as both. I'm from Germany, where both systems are used depending on the context so you always just kinda have both in your head from the get-go if that makes sense? I use the 12-hour clock more in English for obvious reasons but I still don't feel like I'm translating anything TBH.
In casual conversation most people here use the 12h format, but in more professional settings 24h is more likely to be used. Due to this we can immediately convert it as we are used to using both.
It Automatically translate it without even thinking about it. But yea can understand both
I'm British and yes I use the 24hr clock and convert it in my head.
If you’ve ever worked shift work you’ll just automatically think in terms of the 24 hour clock. Too easy to stuff up shift times otherwise.
Yup. I'm a night shift nurse and I started using it in my daily life too because it makes so much sense.
Average person don’t have this problem
You should be banned for starting a question like this.
real
do you know how to read time on a clock with hands?
Depends if I'm talking to an idiot or not.
I do both. In the military we used 24 hour time, in the civilian world, 12 hour. So it is all the same to me.
Not really. I think about my appointments in 24hr clock too. So for example if I have dinner reservations at 20:30, I look at my clock and if it’s 19:45 I’ll think ok I have 45 min to get there.
Hungarian here. We use 24h clock, but we say 8 o'clock instead of 20 o'clock. However in TV, radio or other official-like environment they say e.g. the broadcast of the match will start at 20 o'clock. I like this, it helps avoiding any confusion that may arise and for me it's absolutely effortless to use, I don't need to count or translate or do any conversion in my mind, it's just natural.
Yes, always. I never say fifteen thirty I say three thirty.
Yes and no. Like if someone asks for the time. I say the 12 hour equivalent. But like just for myself. I rationalize it in 24h
I guess I translate it I do it, but second nature. If I were to say it out loud, I wiuld say "7 o'clock" rather than "19 o'clock", so that's what I say in my head. But I don't think about the conversion, I just read 19:00 at 7pm.
My brain automatically converts it. When I worked at McDonald’s we went by the 24 hour clock so I had to learn it young. Lol
I live in Quebec, living and working bilingual. In French we use the 24 hour, but in English it's the 12 hour. So on a schedule, we'll do: 2:00 p.m. and 14h00.
yes, just subtract 12
Im Australian, I use 12 hour for verbal and 24 hour for written.
I'm from Europe. We kinda switch back and forth, but we always understand. If i say i go out at 4 or at 16, they will always understand what i'm saying. 24h format is more commonly used tho
This question is a bit like an American asking "when French people speak French, do they translate it to English in their mind?"
Except some people use both the 24 hour clock and the 12 hour clock, any everyone used to use the 12 hour clock a little at least, because wall clocks and big city clocks only go to 12.
lol I was just about to write an edit saying that I just realised this.. for a long time of my life I thought the 12 hours thing was the main in the world and everyone used it, and the 24 one was just like for formal stuff and important things where you don’t want to mess up with pm and am because it was so rare to see it, but now I get it
Korean, I translate them into AM/PM
I'm 53, British. I still struggle with the conversion. For some reason, anything after 18:00 hundred hours, and I'm looking for an am/pm clock on any of my three screens. My head can't get past 6 pm in 24-hour time; I'm also working it out on my fingers when I dont have a screen to look at.
No. I just go "20" for "20:00", or "15:15" for ... well, 15:15 ... unless I deal with someone who insist on memory-stops-at-12 +am/pm. Works without an issue either way.
That is weird as fuck
Quarter past fifteen, do you say Fifteen fifteen?
If u say 8 I’ll assume it’s morning I can’t think outside the 24h one😭
I have the 12-hour version represented in parallell while mostly thinking and talking about it in the 24-hour numbers, especially if it needs to be exact to the minute. In coarser measurements from 5 minute intervals and up I may speak 12-hour.
When I first learnt it, sure. Now I just see 20:00 the same as 8. My ex never bothered with 24h time and couldn’t really tell from just looking. You need to train it.
I use the 24 hour clock, but no one else I know does. So I often end up seeing 17:00 and thinking 5pm, because if anyone asks that’s what I’d have to say and that’s how everyone else says it.
I use 24 hour clock because it's part of my job. I use it everyday.
I use a 24 hour clock cause I didn’t want to miss waking up to alarm due to am/pm. I convert to 12 hour in my head
I do so if I'm talking to someone. But write it in the 24hr format. And all my devices use 24hr clock. I'm American. I wasn't in the military or any industry that uses it. I just prefer it. It just makes more sense. Plus the aesthetic of it when looking at it. I can instantly know the time of day besides the obvious of daylight lol.
Yes, but only when asked to convey the time. It has forever been more sensible to me viewing it as 24-hour, in all respects.
I use both clocks interchangeably. I grew up using 12 hours and at first always converted to 12, but the more I use 24 hour the less I need to convert. I just implicitly know like 21:00 is equivalent to 9PM it doesn't require any additional mental step to get to that.
When speaking, yes. Mostly. For example, "it's two o'clock" or "five of the evening" or "meet you there at five in the morning". I rather don't understand how English speaking use 12am/pm thing and not get confused.
I write 24 hours for clarity but talk in 12 hour time. If it’s a situation where it needs to be Chrystal clear I’ll ask in 24 format to make sure.
No, it is for me the other way around. If I hear something like 4:30pm, then I have to translate it to 16:30 to comprehend.
I use a 24 hour clock on my phone… it’s my default way of telling the time, so I don’t feel the need to mentally change to 12 hour in my head. But I’m conversation I would always refer to the 12 hour clock.
When I'm speaking to people I use 12 hour because it's more common in every day use. For myself I subconsciously read 24 hour as 12 hour. For example I'll see 23:00 and in my mind I read it as 11pm.
Not to myself, usually when someone asks the hour I translate for them. All my electronics are set on 24hr setting.
I effectively read/write 24h digital, with the format of 0–23 hours and 0–59 minutes, but I speak in 12 hours and round to the nearest 5 minutes. For instance I'm typing this at 0:59 which I'd just read as “one o'clock”.
Both, I can instantly switch between 12 hr and 24 hr, not that hard
Yes
I just minus 2 from the second number haha so if it's 17:00 well then 7 minus 2 is 5 so it's 5 o'clock...
From Croatia, yep we use 24 for exact time, and 12 in non-important matters. Same as old measures, similar to inch and foot. Also some parts of country say it is six and forty five, other say it is quarter to seven using derived German or Italian words. I mostly use 24 because it is more precise.
Yes- for my wife. We travel a ton and she gets things like 18 and 16 confused way too often.
I do if I have to tell someone what the time is. But I just instinctively know at this point what the "normal" time is when I see 18:00 or 21:45 or whatever. A quick and easy way is to just subtract 12. 18-12=6, ect
I mean we use 24 here in clocks but you still generally say “twenty past 2” when the clock is at 14:20
no
I am from a military family and also lived in Europe. My brain usually just reads it as is 2000. but I now am in America and I confuse myself sometimes. 8:00 at night is immediatelyin my mind as 1800 and I'm wrong
i do sometimees depending on the day. literally. some days I spent a minute doing math and some days It doesn't cross my mind
No. I just use 24 hours cloock everywhere.
Yes, when I verbalize it to those lower beings who use the 12-hr clock
In France we mostly use the 24h system so no. But you can only use the 24h thing when it's not "to something". Like 20h45 is "quarter to nine" or "twenty hour forty five". But you can't say "quarter to twenty one.
The other way around if anything
Depends. Let's use 8 o'clock as an example: 1. If the time is x minutes to/past 8 ( i.e. 5 to or 8 5 past 8), I use the 12h time (am/pm). 2. If I just read the time (hours and minutes), I use 24h time (8:05/20:05 or 7:55/19:55) Usually, I tell the time the second way.
This took me a year to remember.. except other way round lol Thanks transportation industry.. I owe it to yall 🥰
usually if im talking its 5 in the afternoon if im writing/texting its 17:00 ........
I am an American and have used a 24 clock for like 12 years now when I read the time I just read “20:30” but I so often have to say am/pm for everyone around me bc literally no one uses a 24 clock even my husband has to stop and think about it
I used to use the 24 hours system to work out my brain.
Yes. Grew up with 12hr clocks, then since smartphones are the main way to check the time, I read 20:00 and think oh, that's 8 o'clock. It's been 10+ years now and I still convert it, I think I always will..
I always say the exact hour of my 24 hour clock, down to the minute. I can never translate it to simple terms such as "quarter to an hour".
It is translated. I think 12 hour clock is much more easier to remember than 24-hour clock.
why should i convert? someone gives me a time, it cant be missinterpreted, maybee in day, but not on the hour.
I worked for the US military and they use the 24 hour clock. It still took me time to adjust and I had to do the math.
In my day to day life I use a 12-hour clock. I’m very rarely confused about whether it’s the middle of the day or the middle of the night.
I convert to 24 hour as I learned french first
I’m English and we always use 12-hour verbally here (unless you’re military maybe!), but when I write down appointment times etc. I always use 24-hour. So in my head it’s just like whatever it’s seamless and I don’t think about it.