In English when we SAY the day in the “month-day-year” format we use ordinal numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th…), but we DON’T WRITE them as ordinal numbers. We WRITE the day of the month as a cardinal number (1, 2, 3, 4…).
We write the date: January 5, 2020.
We say the date: January fifth, twenty twenty.
We DON’T say the date: January five, twenty twenty.
Ordinal Numbers (up to 31)
1st – first
2nd – second
3rd – third
4th – fourth
5th – fifth (the “v” in “five” changes to “f” and the “e” at the end of “five” is dropped)
6th – sixth
7th – seventh
8th – eighth (just add “h” since “eight” already ends in “t”)
9th – ninth (drop the “e” at the end of “nine”, then add “th”)
10th – tenth
11th – eleventh
12th – twelfth (change the “v” to “f”, drop the final “e”, then add “th”)
13th – thirteenth
14th – fourteenth
15th – fifteenth
16th – sixteenth
17th – seventeenth
18th – eighteenth
19th- nineteenth
20th – twentieth (change the “y” to “ie”, then add “th”)
21st – twenty-first (notice the hyphen)
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
Years are not possessive.
Toward the end of the video I go into detail about how years are not possessive, and therefore, we do not need an apostrophe before the “s” after the year.
Correct: I was born in the ’80s.
Correct: I was born in the 1980s.
Correct: I was born in the eighties.
Incorrect: I was born in the 80’s.
Incorrect: I was born in the 1980’s.
If you enjoyed this lesson, check out my last video on how to pronounce the months correctly once and for all!