How to Talk About the Date in English
This week’s guest blog post has been written by Fiona from EnglishFriend.co.uk. Follow her on Instagram and Facebook for more tips.
Rule 1.
The date is written differently in British and American English.
In American English, when people write the date, they write the month first, then the day, and lastly the year.
For example:
08/12/19 (12th August 2019)
So, that’s month – day – year in American English.
In British English, we write the day first, then the month, and the year last.
For example:
08/12/19 (8th December 2019)
So, that’s day – month – year in British English.
Rule 2.
The date is different in written and spoken English.
When we write the date in English, we exclude some words that, when we’re speaking, we do say.
For example:
Written – “I’ll see you at the meeting 12th January”
Spoken – “I’ll see you at the meeting on the 12th of January”
On, the, and of are words that we say, but we don’t write, when we are communicating the date.
Rule 3.
Prepositions.
In English, we have different prepositions that we use when we talk about hours, days, months, and years.
Time (hour) at
At six o’clock
At half past four
At 14:00
Time of day in/at
In the morning
At midday (12:00pm)
In the afternoon
In the evening
At night
Day on
On Monday
On Wednesday
On Sunday
Date on
On 12th January
On February 2nd
On 07/28/18 (American English)
On 28/07/18 (British English)
Month in
In January
In March
In October
In December
Season in
In Spring
In Summer
In Autumn
In Winter
Year in
In 1899
In 2020
In 1975
I hope this helps you next time you have to talk or write about the date in English!
Thanks for studying with Englishfriend.co.uk
Fiona
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