We use "see" to mean an image that comes before our eyes. It may even be only in our minds and not real. I can see the birds in the sky In my mind I can see a beautiful woman Didn't you see the traffic lights? You almost crashed. "Watch" is similar to the verb "look". With the verb "watch", We watch things that are going to move, or change in some way. And we watch so that we can see the changes. I watched the eggs hatching. I like watching sports on TV. My boss is watching me - I suppose he doesn't trust me.

watch -- special efforts see -- just naturally

As living beings, we have five senses: We see We hear We touch We taste We smell These SENSES are involuntary, which means that we cannot choose what we see. We see what our eyes show us. By contrast, 'look' and 'watch' are conscious ACTIONS. We look at a book or watch a film because we want to or because we have to. We can decide whether or not to do these activities, and we do them with a certain amount of attention. You choose to when to start watching something, and you choose when to stop. It is exactly the same for the sense 'hear' and the action 'listen'. NB Your question should be 'What is the difference between 'watch' and 'see'?' I hope that's clear now.

I'm going to use a sunrise to explain the difference. Look at the following sentences: 1. I saw the sunrise this morning. 2. I watched the sunrise this morning. In sentence 1, 'saw' means that you looked up at the sky while the sun was rising. For an instant, you looked at the sunrise, but then you continued what you were doing. In sentence 2, 'watched' means that you looked at the sunrise for the duration of the event. Sunrises usually take around 3-5 minutes to 'watch', but only a second to 'see'. There are two major expections with 'see' that I can think of: 1. I saw a movie last night. This is a very common usage of 'see' that does not agree with how we usually use it. 2. I saw my mom last week. In cases like this, 'see' is used to mean 'visit', so it doesn't follow the pattern, either. I hope this helps. I know it's a confusing thing to understand.