--- title: Time zones: why it's night in Sydney when it's day in London — a lesson of Mova's school · trees and pragmatics description: «Time zones: why it's night in Sydney when it's day in London», a lesson of the world course of Mova's primary school, sentence by sentence with dependency trees and pragmatics. It begins: As the Earth spins, morning sweeps round the planet, so it cannot be the same clock time everywhere and still b --- [Mova](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/) [home](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [corpora](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/) / [school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/) / [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/) / Time zones: why it's night in Sydney w… # Time zones: why it's night in Sydney when it's day in London Lesson 120 of the world course of Mova's primary school: 20 sentences, each with its syntax tree and pragmatics. The lessons are written for Mova, and their agreed trees are part of Mova corpus 0.4 (CC BY-SA 4.0). How Mova does on its tests: [the lesson at school](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/school-run/world/120-time-zones/). - [0](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/0/) — As the Earth spins, morning sweeps round the planet, so it cannot be the same clock time everywhere and still be light at noon. - [1](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/1/) — The world is cut into time zones, each with its own clock time, so that noon stays near the middle of the day wherever you are. - [2](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/2/) — The Earth turns 360 degrees in 24 hours, which is 15 degrees every hour, so time zones are roughly 15-degree slices. - [3](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/3/) — Borders make them wiggly, some places such as India use half-hours, and China uses one zone for the whole wide country, so in its far west the Sun can rise at 9 or 10 am by the clock. - [4](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/4/) — Places to the east are ahead (later in the day); places to the west are behind. - [5](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/5/) — In January, when Jake has breakfast at 9 am in London, his cousin in Sydney is brushing her teeth for bed at 8 pm, 11 hours ahead. - [7](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/7/) — For a flight, add the flying time on the clock of the place you left, then change to the clock of the place you land. - [8](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/8/) — London to New York, leaving 11:00 and flying 8 hours: 19:00 London time, which is 14:00 in New York. - [9](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/9/) — To avoid mix-ups, pilots, ships, scientists and games use one world time, UTC, almost the same as Greenwich Mean Time, and sensible people say "6 pm your time" or "6 pm my time". - [10](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/10/) — A time zone is an area that uses the same clock time. - [11](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/11/) — The Earth turns 360 degrees in 24 hours, which is 15 degrees every hour, so time zones are roughly 15 degrees wide and there are about 24 main ones. - [12](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/12/) — Places to the east are ahead of you in time, and places to the west are behind. - [13](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/13/) — In January Sydney is 11 hours ahead of London, so 9 am in London is 8 pm in Sydney. - [14](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/14/) — New York is usually 5 hours behind London, so 2 pm in London is 9 am in New York. - [15](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/15/) — Kyiv is 2 hours ahead of London, so 7 pm in Kyiv is 5 pm in London. - [16](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/16/) — Dubai is 4 hours ahead of Britain in winter, so 6 pm in Manchester is 10 pm in Dubai. - [17](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/17/) — India is 5 and a half hours ahead of London in winter, and China uses one time zone for the whole country. - [19](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/19/) — Italy in summer is 2 hours ahead of UTC, so 18:00 UTC is 20:00 in Italy. - [20](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/20/) — Hawaii is almost a whole day behind New Zealand, because the International Date Line lies between them; crossing that line going east, the date goes back one day. - [21](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/120-time-zones/21/) — If everyone used London time, noon in Sydney would come in the middle of the night. - ← previous: [The Moon's month and the year round the Sun](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/119-moon-month-and-year/) - next →: [The date line and summer time: clocks going forward and back](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/121-date-line-and-summer-time/) - ↑ back to [World](https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/school/world/)