How to say dates in English - Days, Months and Years (Englishbox) |
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7:05 |
This teacher will show you how t read dates in British English.
How to read years
We break years down into two numbers:
1967 = nineteen, sixty-seven
1492 = fourteen, ninety-two
special cases:
1900 = nineteen hundred
1905 = nineteen o five
2000 - 2009
2000 = two thousand (not usually "twenty hundred")
2008 = two thousand and eight (not usually "twenty o eight") note: in AmE you can also say "two thousand eight"
For more than 2009 you can say both:
2010 = two thousand and ten = twenty ten
Abbreviations
Dates are usually written in abbreviations, not with all the words:
- My birthday is May 2nd = My birthday is May 2
read my birthday is (on) May the second (BrE uses the preposition ON before dates and "the" before the number, AmE can use them or not)
We can also say:
- My birthday is 2nd May = My birthday is 2 May
If we want to say the year too:
write Columbus discovered America on Oct 1st, 1492
read Columbus discovered America (on) October (the) first, fourteen ninety-two
Different possibilities:
We can write: Oct or October (but read "october")
We can write: 1st or 1 (but read "first")
We can place the day before the month or after the month
But if we write the complete date just with numbers, then we need a fixed order:
Date format in numbers
1/5/07
In BrE = 1st May, 2007 (the first of May, twenty o seven) = day+month+year
In AmE = 5th May, 2007 = month+day+year