Full video

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hello everyone it's Hannah here from

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virtually fluent today we are going to

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learn a really important skill in

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English which is telling the time there

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are two different ways to tell the time

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one is relatively easy the other a

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little bit more difficult sadly you need

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to know both of them because native

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speakers use both of these forms of

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telling the time so let's get started

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with those methods for telling the time

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in English

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[Music]

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so we're going to start off with a nice

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simple time like this and we basically

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read all of the numbers individually so

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we start off by saying the whole number

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that is before the decimal point in this

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case four then we say the entire number

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after the decimal point which in this

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case is 20 and then at the end we say

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either a a. if it's in the morning or

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p.m. p.m. if it's in the afternoon

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evening so this particular time would be

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4:20 a.m. what about this time have a

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go this is going to be

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10:35 p.m. now if there are no numbers

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after the decimal point if it's simply a

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zero we don't say anything so in this

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this case it would be 11: a.m. with no

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extra minutes in there now this is the

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sort of digital way of saying numbers in

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English and it's a little bit easier but

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sadly there's the old-fashioned way of

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telling the time in English and we also

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need to know that so when I explain this

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method of telling the time I'm going to

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use the words minute hand which is the

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long hand on the clock and the hour hand

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which is the short hand on the clock now

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we have to imagine that the clock is

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separated into two parts we have one

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method for numbers between 12 and six

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and we have one method between the other

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numbers six and 12 so the right hand

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side of the clock and the left hand side

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of the clock so when the minute hand the

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long hand is between the 12 and the six

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which is on this side of the clock then

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we use this particular method now we

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want to imagine that the number 12 is

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actually a zero for this part of telling

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the time and now we are going to count

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the number of minutes that are from the

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zero to the minute hand which is the big

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hand you can see it here on the number

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one now when we count all of these you

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can see the green markers here we have

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five five minutes so that is the first

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part of our time five now if the minute

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hand is on the right side of the clock

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so between that 12 or zero and the

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number six we say past five P now

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finally we're going to focus on the our

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hand which is the little hand and we

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want to say the whole number that is

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immediately before this little hand in

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this case it's three

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three is the number before that hour

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hand so this time is going to be 5 three

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so to tell the time on this side the

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right side of the clock we have four

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Little Steps step one is convert the

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number 12 to zero imagine it's the

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number zero step two is to count the

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number of minutes to the minute hand

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step three is to say the word p and step

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four is to say the whole number before

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the hour hand now to save you counting

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all of the individual minutes each whole

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number actually represents five minutes

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so the number one is five past number

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two is 10 past number three is a little

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bit different we don't say 15 past we

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say quarter past number four is 20 past

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number five is 25 past and number six is

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also irregular not 30 past but half past

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so this saves you counting all the

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minutes let's take a look at some

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examples what is this time this one is

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going to be quter 6 what about this time

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this is halfast 9 and this time this is

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25 6 now we have a different method when

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the minute hand is on the left side of

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the clock so past the number six all the

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way to the number 12 just like this

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example here now we're going to start

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the same way we're going to imagine our

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number 12 is actually a zero and we are

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also going to count every single minute

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but we're going backwards this time not

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to the right we're going to the left

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instead you can see all the green

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markers here showing the minutes and

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this is 10 10 minutes this is the first

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part of our time 10 now on this side of

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the clock we say two 10 two and our

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final part focuses on the hour hand but

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we say the whole number after the hour

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hand in this case 8 so the time on this

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clock is 10

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to8 so again we have a four-step process

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we convert number 12 to zero

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then step two is to count the number of

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minutes backwards from zero part three

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is to say the word to and part four is

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to say the whole number that is after

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the ourand again to save you counting

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all the minutes each number represents

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five minutes so the number 11 is 52

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number 10 is T to number nine is also an

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exception this is quarter to

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the number eight is 22 and the number

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seven is

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252 let's take a look at a few more

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examples what is this time this is

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quarter to six what about this time this

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is

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527 now the only time we haven't had a

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look at is when the minute hand is on

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the number 12 this one is nice and easy

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and it's a totally different method

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first we say the number that is exactly

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on the hour hand in this case one and

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then we insert the word o00 1:00 what

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about this time this is

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10:00 and that's how we tell the time in

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English there are a few mistakes a few

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traps that students fall into mostly

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mixing up those two methods of time I

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hear 1:00 a.m. a.m. no we have 1 a.m. or

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1:00 the two different methods please

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don't mix them up if you want to learn

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even more about telling the time

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practice it in an online quiz complete

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some online activities and some fun

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games and also to learn some vocabulary

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about the different times of day you can

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take our telling the time course I've

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left the link to this in the description

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below now if you learned exactly how to

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tell the time today go go ahead and give

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today's video a like you can share among

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English grammar pronunciation vocabulary

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and videos about British culture too you

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can also find me across all social media

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we have Facebook LinkedIn Twitter

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Instagram I post on a daily basis lots

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of free content to really help you with

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your English I've left all the links to

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those channels in the description below

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this is Hannah from virtually fluent

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bringing English to life