The concept of numbers doesn’t come up. The way the hands are conveys the fraction of the hour or half day that has passed. There’s never a need to know the exact number, time is continuous and not discrete. The minute hand will move fractional minutes, too.

GenX here. I wanted to reassure you that it didn’t come naturally to me and i grew up when this was still taught in school. The real answer is practice. Read a clock several times a day for a few weeks. Take a moment to think about the mintue hand. Is it about 2/5 of the way to the next digit? 3/5? After a while, you won’t have to think. You will just recognize.

I … look at them. There is no actual thinking that occurs. If it is 9:22 then it is 9:22. If it is 9:23 then it is 9:23. I understand your question, but if the trailing side of the minute hand is not yet even with or past the plane of the upcoming minute, then it remains the previous minute.

I guess I’m at that age where stuff like this means I’m old 😂

I’ll answer your question though: just buy a watch that the minutes are clearly marked with ticks and the minute hand moves by the minute and isn’t in constant motion.

Here’s some friendly advice though. Before digital, there really wasn’t a way to be so accurate down to the minute. Remember there wasn’t even really a way to get the right time. You just got it from somewhere else and hoped that time was accurate. Most people set their watches to the places that we’re important to them, ie work. So that they they were on time to whatever it was that they needed to get to.

With that said, anyone that needed pinpoint accuracy had other means of getting the time or they used very expensive chronometers that kept time extremely well. In other words normal people just did stuff a couple minutes early in case their watches were slow.

ALL OF THAT to say if you want accuracy down to the minute, just use digital.

My primary wall clock has a second hand and clearly defined minute tick marks, and syncs nightly to public timekeeping signals (the so-called “atomic” clock). This satisfies my precision needs.

If your watch doesn’t have a second hand you may want one that does. If you see the minute hand at 9:23 but the second hand it at 45 seconds, then you know it is 9:22:45. It does take an extra glance, but only when you need that exact time.

However, that also depends on being synced to “real” time for it to matter. Therefore most analog watches will always be a little off. Over time (no pun intended) you would learn what the “drift” of the watch is.

To ensure you are on time and you only had an analog watch, you would just be early to ensure you are not late.

Well this is certainly a question I never thought I’d read on the internet.

The school systems need an overhaul.

Its six – five = (approx) 06:25:00 (notice minute hand is pointing at 5)

its seven – eight’n’half = (approx) 08:42:05 (minute hand pointing between 8 and 9)

I just do quick maths, I have multiplication table memorized from all the way to 9, since first grade.

They literally make a “poem” on multiplication table in mainland China where I was from (all the way to 9x9, but multiples of 10 is obvious so they ommitted it, afiak).

So my thought process is:
一五的五 (1, 5 = 5)
二五一十 (2, 5, 10)
三五十五 (3, 5, 15)
四五二十 (4, 5, 20)
五五二十五 (5, 5, 25)
五六三十 (5, 6, 30)
五七三十五 (5, 7, 35)
五八四十 (5, 8, 40)
五九四十五 (5, 9, 45)
(this is the point where my thoughts switch away from mandarin and just thinking pure numbers)
5 x 10 = 50
5 x 11 = 55
5 x 12 = wait… no need, its just 0 mins again

So yea just remember how to recall the “poem” out of thin air and summon the numbers, takes about like 1-2 seconds, mandarin being 1 sylable per charater make it easier to remember (七七四十九 – 5 sylables vs “Seven times seven is fourty nine” – 9 sylables). Sorry I don’t know how everyone else do multiplication tables, my brain works differently, but funny thing is, 11x11 to 14x14 really messed with my brain since it only goes to 9x9

(Yes I typed all that just to show off how they literally crammed a weird entire multiplication “poem” in my head that’s still stuck in my head to this day when I’m no longer in the country lolz. Sorry for the boring wall of text xD)

Edit: typos

I usually round to 5 minutes. If I for whatever reason need the exact minute it will take a couple of second to see, depending on the design of the clock.

Hell nah. I just look at the hour hand and how far away the minute hand is away from the 6. Before the 6, Hour O’clock. After the 6, Hour 30.

If I’m bored, sure. Otherwise it’s to the nearest 5 minutes

Eventually you learn to recognise the hand positions almost like they’re symbols in their own right. You can tell the difference between an apostrophe and a comma, right? And in certain typefaces they’re identical symbols other than their position.

For the same reason, you can tell the difference between an hour hand just past the 12 and an hour hand just past the 6. Then you learn what the other positions look like.

Then you can read the minute hand to whatever precision you need.

After that it’s just practise, practise, practise. Your read times will tumble and before long you’ll be completely used to it and be just as fast as with digital.

I don’t generally read them to the minute very often. For the most part, 5 min increments are close enough for what I need, most of the time. If I do need a more precise time, I’m usually already closely watching the clock and it’s just addition (was 1341 when I started this, now it’s 1345.).

If I need to get the precise time, cold, than it’s as simple as: closest 5 min tick, then add or subtract minute ticks till you get to the minute hand

Eventually you get to the point where it’s not something you consciously think about. You just look at the clock and then pattern recognition takes over and you just know what time it is.

I grew up with analog clocks and can read them at a glance.

For the most part, I don’t really care precisely about minute. E.g. the analog clock in my kitchen is only used to tell me that it’s “roughly 2 minutes past 5 soon” and it’s enough for me to put the potatoes on.

If I need to know precisely whether it’s 16:03 vs 16:04, I use a digital clock. Though mostly because my analog clocks are not precisely synced at all times.

Back when analog was the norm, nobody cared about a minute here or there unless they had some specific profession. Like, the bus came “15:15 ish maybe 5 minutes early maybe 10 minutes late”. Everyone’s clock were off by at least 2 minutes anyway.

Today in the digital age, the bus schedule says “15:17”

I think of analog time as kinda a pie chart telling me how much of the minute and hour that’s elapsed. So I don’t see 13:45, I see 75% past one o’clock.

Does that make sense?

Imo for most applications that I’d be using an analog clock for a time difference of even up to 5-10 minutes is irrelevant. If I really needed up to the minute accuracy I’m using a digital clock with the seconds counting down