How To Read Dates In English - Spoken English Lesson

Hello, I'm Oli.

Welcome to Oxford Online English.

Let me ask you a question: "When is your birthday?"

This is a simple question, but many English learners can't answer without making a mistake.

This is because reading dates in English, saying months and years and dates, is quite

complicated.

In this lesson, we're going to look at how you can read dates in English.

Let's start with an example.

So you see this.

How can you say it?

Actually, there are two possibilities.

You can say: "November the fourteenth," or: "The fourteenth of November."

Let's do one more example.

You see this.

How can you say it?

Again, the same two ways: "September the thirtieth," or: "The thirtieth of September."

You can see that we don't normally write these words, 'the' and 'of', but we do say them.

You might sometimes hear native speakers read dates without 'the', especially in American

English.

If you aren't sure, it's better to use 'the'.

Next, let's look at years.

What about years?

Let's look at five years and I want you to think about how you could say them.

Think about your answers.

Pause the video for a moment, and work out your answers if you aren't sure.

Ok?

Let's look.

We say: "Nineteen hundred," "Nineteen oh two," "Nineteen eighty," "Two thousand and one,"

"Two thousand and ten," or "Twenty ten."

We need different rules for years before and after two thousand.

So for years before 2000, if the year ends in '00', use hundreds not thousands.

So say: "nineteen hundred," not "one thousand nine hundred."

If the year ends in '01', '02', '03' etc., pronounce 'zero' as 'oh', and don't say hundred.

So we say "nineteen oh one," "eighteen oh two," "seventeen oh five" and so on.

If the year ends in a number bigger than ten, say the year in two parts.

For example: "eighteen twenty," "nineteen fifty-five," or "nineteen ninety-nine."

For years after 2000, we need different rules.

For the years 2000-2009, use the full number.

"Two thousand," "Two thousand and one," "Two thousand and two," etc.

For the years 2010-2019, you can choose: you can say the full number - you can say "Two

thousand and ten," or you can say the year in two parts: "Twenty ten."

The same is true for all of these years, so you can say: "Twenty eleven," or "Two thousand

and eleven."

They're both ok.

For 2020 and after, you can still choose to say the year in two parts, or say the full

number, but saying the year in two parts will be more common.

So "Twenty twenty" will be more common than "Two thousand and twenty," although both are

ok.

Sometimes we shorten dates and use a short form.

For example, we often shorten years from the recent past by just reading the last two numbers

of the year.

For example: you can say "eighty-one" for 1981, like: "My brother was born in eighty-one."

2001 could become "oh-one": "I graduated in oh-one."

1999 could be "ninety-nine," like: "She started working here in ninety-nine."

We also sometimes shorten months by using the number of the month instead of the name.

So if your birthday is the 20th of June, 1989, you could read it as: "Twentieth of the sixth,

eighty-nine."

This is very common especially when giving information on the phone, or in a bank, in

a shop, something like that, people use this quite often.

Ok, that's the end of the lesson.

I hope it was useful for you.

If you're watching this on YouTube, I suggest you check out the full lesson on our website.

The full lesson includes a text and exercises to help you practise this topic.

But that's all.

Thanks again very much for watching, and I'll see you next time.

Bye bye!