The date in British and American English

En este post aprenderás cómo decir la fecha en inglés británico y americano. Es el post más completo que encontrarás online y el mejor explicado. 🙂

Updated on 31/12/25

What’s the date today? If you’ve never heard that, it means you haven’t been to school in Spain. I’m sure that question is studied in the English teaching degree… Wait, I studied teaching and I don’t remember that! 🤔How strange… Anyway, in today’s article, which has been a long time coming, I’ll explain how to say the date in British English and American English. And yes, once again Americans and Britons couldn’t agree on how to do it the same way.

But hey, as you’ll see, it’s actually quite easy to use both. So let’s start with the basic concepts you need to know to be able to write the date in English… Let’s go!

Basic concepts of the date in English

First, let’s quickly review the most basic concepts you’ll need to know to write the date in English:

• Days of the week
• Ordinal numbers
• Months of the year
• Years

Ordinal numbers

As we saw in the recent post on numbers in English, ordinal numbers are those used to express the order in a series. Unlike how we express and write the date in Spanish, where we use cardinal numbers (1, 2, 3, etc.), in English we use ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, etc.).

So, the ordinal numbers we need to know for the date in English are the 31 possible days that months can have:

• 1st = first
• 2nd = second
• 3rd = third
• 4th = fourth
• 5th = fifth
• 6th = sixth
• 7th = seventh
• 8th = eighth
• 9th = ninth
• 10th = tenth
• 11th = eleventh
• 12th = twelfth
• 13th = thirteenth
• 14th = fourteenth
• 15th = fifteenth
• 16th = sixteenth
• 17th = seventeenth
• 18th = eighteenth
• 19th = nineteenth
• 20th = twentieth
• 21st = twenty-first
• 22nd = twenty-second
• 23rd = twenty-third
• 24th = twenty-fourth
• 25th = twenty-fifth
• 26th = twenty-sixth
• 27th = twenty-seventh
• 28th = twenty-eighth
• 29th = twenty-ninth
• 30th = thirtieth
• 31st = thirty-first

So, whenever we are going to say a date, to indicate the day number of the month, we use the ordinal number. For example, if it is «2 August», in English we will say «the second of August», i.e., «2nd (of) August». But we will see more examples later.

Now let’s move on to the days of the week.

Days of the week

The days of the week are very simple and you surely already know them:

SPANISH	ENGLISH
Lunes	Monday
Martes	Tuesday
Miércoles	Wednesday
Jueves	Thursday
Viernes	Friday
Sábado	Saturday
Domingo	Sunday

In this case, it is important to note that in Spanish, the days of the week are written with a lowercase letter when they are not at the beginning of a sentence. However, in English they are always written with a capital letter, except in rare cases where they are not considered a proper noun.

Now let’s move on to the months of the year.

Months of the year

You surely already know the twelve months of the year in English, but if you’re interested in learning more, I recommend you read this post about the origin of the months of the year in English. You won’t be disappointed, and it also has images you can download. 🙂

Here is the translation of the 12 months of the year, in case you need to review:

SPANISH	ENGLISH
Enero	January
Febrero	February
Marzo	March
Abril	April
Mayo	May
Junio	June
Julio	July
Agosto	August
Septiembre	September
Octubre	October
Noviembre	November
Diciembre	December

As with the days of the week, in English we also capitalise the months, while in Spanish they are written with a lowercase letter.

Now, let’s move on to the last unit: years.

Years

This is where things start to get interesting. And that is, English speakers are sometimes very inconsistent. It turns out that in English, years are not said as the normal cardinal number. That is, 1987 is not said «one thousand, nine hundred and eighty-seven», but «nineteen eighty-seven». Right. It doesn’t make sense. But if you think about it… it’s much easier. Now, not to be untruthful, I will say that the full number can also be said, but it is very uncommon today to do it that way.

If you’re a bit sharp, you’ll have noticed that in English, when we say years, we usually divide them into two and two, that is, 19-87 (to follow the previous example).

This is usually done with 4-digit years: For example:

• 2022: twenty twenty-two
• 2001: twenty oh one
• 1980: nineteen eighty
• 1520: fifteen twenty

However, if the year has 3 digits, the digit is usually said as the normal cardinal number:

• 750: seven hundred and fifty
• 192: one hundred and ninety-two

But obviously, this won’t be common in our daily lives, so remember the first rule: divide the year into two and two digits. 🙂

Now that we know the elementary units that will make up the date in English, let’s see how the British do it (very much their own way, of course) and how the Americans do it (who go their own way, as you know).

How to write the date in British English

In British English, which is the correct one, of course (LOL), the date is composed as follows:

day of the week + day number (ordinal) + month + year

That is, if we have the following date in Castilian:

Lunes, 12 de Octubre de 2022

In English we would say:

Monday 12th October 2022

As you can see, knowing the pattern above and the basic elements, it’s very easy to construct any full date. 😃

However, as you may have observed, we do not write «of» at any time. And also, ordinal numbers in English are usually accompanied by «the», such as «the second», not just «second».

So it’s important that you know this from now on. In English, we do not write «of» or «the» in dates, but we do usually say them orally. I know. It doesn’t make sense, but what can we do? Haha.

So:

• We write: Tuesday 15th December 2022
• We say: Tuesday the 15th of December 2022.

How do you feel? Stunned, right? Me too, a little bit, even though I’ve known it since I was little, hehe.

Now let’s move on to the Americans.

How to write the date in American English

In American English, the date is similar, it has the same elements, but the order changes. Which, to me, makes no sense, but that’s how it is. So, in this case, we use the following pattern:

day of the week + month + day number (ordinal) + year

For example, where in British English we write:

Monday 12th October 2022

In American English, it is usually written like this:

Monday October 12(th), 2022

It is important in this case to note that before the year, it is recommended to put a comma, and that often the -th or what corresponds after the number is not written, although it is still ordinal. However, I recommend always writing the suffix of the number and the comma. This makes everything clearer. 🙂

And, as before, not everything that is said is written:

• We write: Tuesday December 15th, 2022
• We say: Tuesday December (the) 15th, 2022

I put the in brackets because often it is not said either. I know, everything seems very irregular, right? It is. 🥲

What do you think? Any questions? Leave me a comment if you like!

Examples of important dates in English

Now we are going to see a not very extensive list of important dates in English, both in British English and American English.

Examples of dates in American English

Below, as an example, we have a series of relevant (very random) dates in US history. This way we can see how they are written in American English:

EVENT	DATE	WRITTEN FORM
Declaration of Independence	July 4, 1776	July (the) fourth, seventeen seventy-six
The Continental Congress approves the Articles of Confederation	July 9, 1778	July (the) ninth, seventeen seventy-eight
The Treaty of Paris 1783	September 3, 1783	September (the) third, seventeen eighty-three
The delegates at the Philadelphia convention approve the Constitution	September 17, 1787	September (the) seventeenth, seventeen eighty-seven
The United States Army is established	September 29, 1789	September (the) twenty-ninth, seventeen eighty-nine
The Bill of Rights is ratified by 3/4ths of the states	December 15, 1791	December (the) fifteenth, seventeen ninety-one
The United States Marine Corps is established	July 11, 1798	July (the) eleventh, seventeen ninety-eight
Battle of the Alamo	February 23, 1836	February (the) twenty-third, eighteen thirty-six
The Civil War	April 12, 1861	April (the) twelfth, eighteen sixty-one
Emancipation Proclamation	January 1, 1863	January (the) first, eighteen sixty-three

And a long etcetera of important dates.

Examples of dates in British English

Now let’s see a list of important (but random) dates in British history as they are written and said in British English.

EVENT	DATE	WRITTEN FORM
Thomas Cromwell executed	28th July 1540	Twenty-eighth of July, fifteen forty
Death of Henry VIII	28th January 1547	Twenty-eighth of January, fifteen forty-seven
Death of Edward VI	6th July 1553	Sixth of July, fifteen fifty-three
English Parliament outlaws Roman Catholicism	16th January 1581	Sixteenth of January, fifteen eighty-one
Bank of England founded by William Paterson	27th July 1694	Twenty-seventh of july, sixteen ninety-four
Anne Stuart becomes Queen	8th March 1702	Eighth of March, seventeen oh two
William IV dies	20th June 1837	Twentieth of June, eighteen thirty-seven
Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee	21st June 1887	Twenty-first of June, eighteen eighty-seven
Queen Victoria’s funeral	2nd February 1901	Second of February, nineteen oh one
80th birthday of Queen Elizabeth II	21st April 2006	Twenty-first of April, two thousand and six (or twenty oh six)
Queen Elizabeth II dies aged 97	8th September 2022	Eighth of September, twenty twenty-two

Any questions? Leave me a comment!

Numerical ways of writing the date

In this last section, we are going to make a small mention of the abbreviated numerical form of dates. And that is, as you may already know, there are some differences. Let’s see…

In Spain and, in general, in Europe, when we write a date in numerical form, we do it like this: day/month/year. Sometimes we can use one or two digits for the months or two or four digits for the years, but in any case, it is not confusing. For example:

• 20/07/22: 20th July 2022 / Twentieth of July, twenty twenty-two
• 19/10/1987: 19th October 1987 / Nineteenth of October, nineteen eighty-seven

However, in American English they do not follow the same order, as they, following their normal order of dates, usually write: month/day/year. So:

• 12/7/22: December 7th, 2022 (And not 7 July 2022)
• 7/5/8: July 5th, 2008 (And not 7 May 2008).

Therefore, I recommend that you be careful when you see dates in numerical format on the internet, for example, because you might be interpreting it backwards.

Download this post in PDF

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And, finally, we have reached the end of this comprehensive article on dates in English.

What did you think? Useful? Useless? Leave me a comment and tell me or ask me anything you want.

Until the next post, don’t forget to keep smiling!