How to Say Years in English

Hello. My name is Emma, and in today's lesson,

I am going to teach you pronunciation of years.

So what do I mean by years? Well, I'm going to

talk about different years and how we pronounce

them. So, in English, we pronounce years differently

depending on what year it is. So I'm going

to teach you a little bit about this, and to

begin with, I'm going to give you an example.

I have here the year, is it 2021 or is it 2021? How do we pronounce this? Well, you

can actually pronounce this both ways, but most people pronounce it this way. Most of

the time, we actually say 2021, so we break

this up, and I'm going to explain other years

that follow this in a moment, but I just want to show you some differences.

Now let's look at the next year, okay? Here

we have a year. Do we pronounce this as 2005

or do we pronounce this as 2005 or 2005?

Well, the way we actually pronounce this year

is 2005, so you might be thinking, "Wait a second. I don't understand. Why is it okay

to say 2021, but why don't we say 2005 or something like that?" Well, I'm not the one

who created the English language, so I apologize,

but in today's video, I'm going to try to

make this as simple as possible for you. You're

going to learn about how to talk about different

decades. You're going to learn about the rules

that are similar to this, the rules that are

similar to this, and when do we use which pronunciation, okay? So let's get started.

Okay, so I know the pronunciation of years can

be confusing. Let's start with the easiest ways

to pronounce certain years, okay? So the rule

I'm going to teach you is the rule we use

when we pronounce years, and this rule happens most of the time. So I have here

2010. How do we pronounce this word? We can say "twenty ten". This year is 2010.

We can also say "two thousand and ten", but

in general, native speakers of English prefer

to say "twenty ten", and this is a lot easier.

It's a lot faster to say, so it's the more

common way to say it. It's the same with this

year. What can we say? We can say "twenty eleven".

This year is 2012. Can you guess what this one's going to be? 2013, 2014, 2015,

2016. Let's just go to the very end of the decade. 2017, 2018, 2019, and then 2020.

We can keep going 2021, 2022, 2023. I think you

understand the picture. So that's what's happening

after 2010. So anytime after 2010, remember,

it's easy. Now let's look at the 90s, okay?

What do we say with this one? Well, we follow the

same rule, actually. We say "nineteen ninety".

What do you think this one is? "Nineteen ninety-one",

"nineteen ninety-two", okay? Some of you might have been born in these years,

so they're really good ones to know, or maybe

for some of you who are older, maybe you went to

college during these years, or you remember

these years really well. "Nineteen ninety-three".

"Nineteen ninety-three". What comes after 1993?

Can you guess? If you said "nineteen ninety-four",

you're correct. So this goes all the way up to

"nineteen ninety-nine", okay? So we have "nineteen

ninety-nine". 2000 is a different story, so we'll get to that a little bit later,

but all of these are pronounced in two parts.

We have the first number, which is the 19,

and the second number, in this case, 90, 91, 92,

and so forth. What about if you were born in the

80s? How do you pronounce numbers from this

decade? Well, it's the same rule. We can actually

say "nineteen eighty". This is "nineteen

eighty-one", "nineteen eighty-two", and so forth.

So again, you have two parts. You have the 19,

and then you have the other part of the year,

80, 81, 82, 83, and so forth. Can you say "nineteen hundred and eighty"?

No. So native speakers do not say that. Technically, you are correct, but nobody

uses that, okay? So when you say these years, we

do not say "nineteen thousand and eighty-one",

that's "ee", incorrect. We say simply "nineteen eighty", "nineteen eighty-one".

The same goes for the 1970s, so you can say "nineteen seventy", "nineteen seventy-one",

and so forth. And it just keeps happening that way in all the previous decades.

So here I have another example. Here I have more

than a hundred years ago, a lot more. I have here

"one eight seven zero". Does that follow the same

rule as these? Yeah, it does. So what do we say?

We look at the first part, this is "eighteen",

and then we have another number, "seventy",

"eighteen seventy". What do you think this one's going to be?

"Eighteen seventy-one". I'm going to put another year on here.

I picked this one. What do you think this number is? "Eighteen sixty-seven". So this

is an important year for Canada, because this is when Canada became a country.

Okay, so these all follow the same rules. Now we

are going to learn the exceptions to these rules.

As you know, English always has exceptions, so

that's what is next. Okay, so now we're going to

look at some of the years that have a harder

pronunciation, and that is anything that has

two O's in it, meaning "two thousand", "two thousand and one", "two thousand and two".

Why did I draw this face? Well, because this

is so much harder to say than "twenty twenty".

Instead, we have to say the word "thousand", which

is a bit of a mouthful. We also need the word "and

one". So, "two thousand and one", "two thousand

and two", "two thousand and three". Can you guess

what this one's going to be? "Two thousand and

four", "two thousand and five", "two thousand

and six", "two thousand and seven", "two thousand

and eight", "two thousand and nine". See, I feel

this way when I say all these numbers because

I'm getting tired saying so many words at once.

I love saying "twenty ten", it's just so fast.

So, that reminds me, how do we say this one?

Does it follow this rule? No, we say "twenty

ten", so this is when I become happy again.

Hopefully that can help you remember. If you can't remember numbers,

just think if you can put an unhappy face in it, then you got to say it the long way,

"two thousand and whatever". Okay, so now we're

going to look at a couple more exceptions.

Luckily, we are now in the 2020s, so when you

talk about this year or the following year,

you get to say it in the easy way. So, now let's

look at some exceptions and let's learn about

how we talk about decades. Okay, so we've covered

a lot already. Now we're going to talk more about

numbers and history. So, these are all older

numbers. So, if you don't care about history,

this might be less important to you. What we've

covered already is probably the most important

because those are the years that have happened recently.

So, I have here some numbers. I have 1-9-0-0, 1-8-0-0, 1-7-0-0, and 1-6-0-0.

When we're talking about the beginning of a

century, we have a certain way of pronouncing it.

We say 1-9-0-0, 1-8-0-0, 1-7-0-0, 1-6-0-0. So,

we have the number, which is in this case a teen,

and then we have 100, so 1-9-0-0. So, this is

an exception for when we're talking about the

beginning of a century, so when we have two O's. This is how we pronounce that.

When we're talking about the early 1900s, we

have a certain way of pronouncing that as well.

So, we have here 1-9-0-1. The pronunciation of this is 19-0-1. You might think,

why do we say O? This is a zero. It's not

the letter O, but we actually pronounce this

like an O, like the letter O. 19-0-1. Can you guess what this one is? 19-0-2, 19-0-3,

and it continues. We have 19-0-4, 19-0-5, 19-0-6, and then we get to this number.

Can you guess what this one is? It's like 2010.

We say 19-10, and after that, it's nice and easy.

We have 19-11, 19-12, and it follows those rules

I mentioned earlier where we have this part of

the number, and then we say this part of the

number. So, now let's get to the exciting part,

talking about decades. So, we often talk about different time periods.

We often talk about what it was like to live

in the 1990s. How do we call this period,

1990 to 1999? What do we call that as a whole? We call that decade the 90s.

So, you can say the 90s, and it means this period.

Some of you might have been born in the 90s.

Some of you might have really enjoyed the 90s.

Some of you might remember before the internet

in the 90s or when the internet was new, what it

was like. So, that time period is called the 90s.

Before that, we have 1980 to 1989. What do we call

this decade? Well, this time period is the 80s.

Many people like 80s music. Before that, we have the 70s, which is this time period,

1970 to 1979. We have the 60s. We have the

50s, the 40s, the 30s, the 20s, and so forth.

Okay, so we have covered a lot today. What I

want you to do is really focus on the years

that matter to your life. So, for example, you

might really focus on the year you were born,

because you're likely to say that year a lot,

or maybe years that are happening now or just

happened, like 2020, 2021, you know, 2010.

Those might be more important years to remember.

If you're not interested in history, these words

might not be as important. They're still important,

but I would focus my time on the years that

are the most meaningful and important to your

own life, because those are the years you're

likely to say. Now, you might notice that we

have the 90s, the 80s, the 70s, and so forth.

What do you call the decade of the 2000s?

The truth is there is no consensus. Different people call it different things.

So, when we talk about the decade and we're talking about

this, some people might say the 2000s. There might be other ways to call it,

but again, there's no real consensus. It's the same when we're talking about

this decade, so 2010 to 2020, or sorry, 2019.

What do we call this decade? Some people might

call it the 2010s or the 20-teens. Again,

there's no real consensus, so you might hear

different things. So, thank you so much for watching. I highly recommend you come visit

our website at www.engvid.com, and there you can

actually take a quiz to practice everything you

learned here. I also recommend that you subscribe

to my channel on YouTube for more videos on

pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary, study

skills, and so much more. Thanks for watching,

and until next time, take care.