Learn English Basics

Learn about days and dates(requires Real Player).

The days of the week:-

The working week						The weekend
	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday	Sunday (the Sabbath)
	Mon	Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat	Sun

 

Watch and listen to this video (requires access to YouTube.)

The months of the year:-

	January	February	March	April	May	June
	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun
	July	August	September	October	November	December
	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec

Now you have a go:-

Dates:-

In figures	In words	Pronounce It
1st	the first	1st
2nd	the second	2nd
3rd	the third	3rd
4th	the fourth	4th
5th	the fifth	5th
6th	the sixth	6th
7th	the seventh	7th
8th	the eighth	8th
9th	the ninth	9th
10th	the tenth	10th
11th	the eleventh	11th
12th	the twelfth	12th
13th	the thirteenth	13th
14th	the fourteenth	14th
15th	the fifteenth	15th
16th	the sixteenth	16th
17th	the seventeenth	17th
18th	the eighteenth	18th
19th	the nineteenth	19th

20th	the twentieth	20th
21st	the twenty-first	...
22nd	the twenty-second	...
23rd	the twenty-third	...
24th	the twenty-fourth	...
25th	the twenty-fifth	...
26th	the twenty-sixth	...
27th	the twenty-seventh	...
28th	the twenty-eighth	...
29th	the twenty-ninth	...
30th	the thirtieth	30th
31st	the thirty-first	...

Expressing the year

How we write the year	2008	1900	1959	2000
How we say the year	Two thousand and eight	Nineteen hundred	Nineteen fifty-nine	The year 2000

 

Expressing the date

How we write the date	1st January 2004	07/09/1959	August 12 2003
How we say the date	The first of January 2004	The seventh of September 1959	August the 12th 2003

 

Prepositions

For single days and dates we use on.

For example:

I was born on the 7th of the month.

For months we use in.

For example:

I was born in September.

! My birthday is on September the 7th.

Naturally speaking

How to ask the day or date

What day is it please?	It's Tuesday.
What date is it please?	It's the 1st of April.
What's the date today please?	It's the 1st of April.

Interesting Stuff

AD stands for Anno Domini (Latin for "In the year of (Our) Lord"), abbreviated as AD. It defines an epoch based on the traditionally-reckoned year of the conception or birth of Jesus of Nazareth. it is used in the English language to denote years after the start of this time.

BC stands for Before Christ (from the Ancient Greek "Christos" or "Anointed One", referring to Jesus), abbreviated as BC, it is used in the English language to denote years before the start of this time.

Some non-Christians also use the abbreviations AD and BC without intending to acknowledge the Christian connotation, but some people prefer the alternatives 'CE' (Common Era) and 'BCE' (Before Common Era), arguing that they are more neutral terms. .

A millennium (pl. millennia) is a period of one thousand years.

A century is a period of one hundred consecutive years. Centuries are numbered ordinally (e.g. "the nineteenth century").

A decade is a period of 10 years.

The decades from 1920 to 1999, are called "the Twenties", "the Sixties", etc. But the current decade has no universally accepted name. Some refer to the decade as the "twenty hundreds" while others may refer to it as the "two thousands". In written form, this could appear as "the '00s" or "the 2000s". But writing "the 2000s" or simply saying "the two-thousands" can cause confusion, since this could refer to the entire 21st century or even the entire millennium. Some people tried to popularize "the Noughties" as the decade's name. This is a play on words, nought means "zero" and noughties sounds both like nineties and naughty.

You'll find some more interesting facts about days and dates in the Interesting Facts Blog.

!Note - When writing the date as numbers British and American English differ. To write the date 7th of September 2007 a Brit would write dd/mm/yy (07/09/07) and an American would write mm/dd/yy (09/07/07). This often causes great confusion. It's better to write the date in full (7th September 2007 or September 7th 2007). It also looks nicer.