Dates

Saying the Date

There are two different ways to say the date in English:

• first the day (ordinal number), then the month
  here, we say the before the day and of before the month.
  

  Example:

  5 October 2004 - the fifth of October, two thousand and four

• first the month, then the day (ordinal number)
  In British English we say the before the day (in American English we can leave out the.)
  

  Example:

  October 5, 2004 - October (the) fifth, two thousand and four

We use it’s to say the date in a sentence.

Example:

It’s the fifth of October today.

Asking About The Date

To ask about the date we can say:

Example:

What’s the date today?
What date is it today?

Writing the Date

We can write the date with words and numbers or just with numbers. We write the date day + month + year.

Example:

5 January 2016

We can write the day as an ordinal number.

Example:

5^th January 2016

We can put a comma between the month and the year. This is common when the date is part of a sentence.

Example:

The baby was born on 5^(th) January, 2016.

We can also write the date using just numbers. We use a slash (/), a dot (.) or a dash (-) to separate the numbers.

Example:

5/1/16
5.1.16
5-6-16