DATES & YEARS in British & American English

Hello everyone and welcome back to English with Lucy

today I am going to correct an error that many of you

have been making.

I'm gonna tell you how to say and write dates properly.

Now, the main thing that confuses people, is the difference

between American Dates and British Dates.

Americans would say the month first,

then the day,

then the year.

British people however, would say the day first,

then the month,

then the year.

So that's the main difference,

I would say my date of birth at the 10th of June 1994

Americans would say June 10th 1994

Now another error that people make is that they get confused between cardinal and ordinal numbers.

Here are the cardinal numbers:

one,

two,

three,

four,

five.

Then, we have the ordinal numbers:

first,

second,

third,

fourth,

fifth.

See the difference?

Cardinal

Ordinal

Now, the abbreviation of ordinal numbers are as follows: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th.

And so on.

And we will always use this format when writing out dates in full.

It's very rare to see an unabbreviated ordinal number in a written date.

This is just waste of space.

Like many things on this planet.

Another error is that students often forget

that we write months with a capital letter.

Make sure you fully understand the pronunciation of the months of the year.

If you have any doubts about how to learn pronunciation you can see this video

in the card above.

January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.

Witch month is your favourite?

Comment bellow and tell me why.

So,

that's is how you write the date.

In English the 10th of June 1994

and in American June 10th 1994.

Now, did you hear me when I read out the British version?

It's written 10th June 1994

but I said (the) 10th (of) June 1994.

So, you don't need to write 'the' and 'of' but you need to say it.

If you say 'My birthday is 10th June 1994'

it sounds a little bit weird, it sounds a bit forced and unnatural.

So you want to say 'My birthday is the 10th of June 1994'

In American English this is not essential.

My birthday is June 10th 1994.

Now, something else tend to be really confused, is how to say years.

With years before the millennium (1994)

we know that we split it up into 2 sections:

18|25 ,

10|66.

10|66 for example

Let me get past the year 2000 it starts to get a little bit more complicated.

Now, there are two acceptable ways of saying the dates:

You can say twenty and then the number

although, with the years before two thousand and ten you want to say

o9

We'll say twenty o eight, twenty o nine, twenty ten.

Otherwise, if you say twenty nine, it sounds like

the number 29.

So,

you need to say twenty o nine.

I have a prefer to say the full number. I like to say:

two thousand and seventeen.

The important thing that you must remember is the 'and'.

It is absolutely essential that you include the 'and' when you say a date starting with the year 2000.

two thousand and one (2001),

two thousand and ten (2010),

two thousand and seventeen (2017).

Now, did you hear I say n, n,

I just add an extra syllable and go in, in

two thousand and one,

two thousand and seventeen

so I'm using the schwa sound

two thousand and seventeen,

two thousand and twelve.

So, there you have it!

So there you have it, the definitive guide on how to read dates in English!

I hope that was usefull for you, I hope you learned something.

Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.

You've got my Instagram and my Facebook where I host a free live pronunciation lesson every sunday at 16:30 GMT.

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I will see you soon for another lesson.

*muack*

When we get pass the millennium

When we get pass the year two thousand