PRONOUNCING YEARS: THOUSANDS

Good morning and welcome back to the Daily Vitamin.

Today we will finish the topic of how to pronounce years in English.

As we mentioned yesterday, years that refer to hundreds can be pronounced in two ways. It is important to know that years with four digits (cifras) referring to thousands are usually pronounced as two separate numbers.

Examples:
1466 ⇒ fourteen sixty-six
1805 ⇒ eighteen 'oh' five
1970 ⇒ nineteen seventy
1999 ⇒ nineteen ninety-nine

The year 2000 is pronounced two thousand.

You will hear different pronunciations to the years following 2000:

As one number
Examples: 
2001 ⇒ two thousand and one or two thousand one
2002 ⇒ two thousand and two or two thousand two
2010 ⇒ two thousand and ten or two thousand ten
2065 ⇒ two thousand and sixty-five or two thousand sixty-five

Starting with the year 2010, most people abbreviate these years and say them as two numbers.

As two numbers
Examples: 
2010 ⇒ twenty ten
2026 ⇒ twenty twenty-six
2065 ⇒ twenty sixty-five

⇒ In order to get some speaking practice with these dates, I encourage you to say the dates aloud, using both the one-number version and the two-number version. If you're bold, you can even upload a sound file of yourself saying these numbers to one of our social media sites (Facebook or Bluesky) and we will give you feedback about your speaking ASAP.

Have a great day!