How to say the years

and Facebook groups

Photo by Henry & Co. on Unsplash

Hello!

A new Facebook group

As promised, I’ve opened a new Facebook group specifically for women who want to improve their English.

So would you like to be part of this supportive and encouraging space where you can practise English, ask questions, and build your confidence alongside like-minded women?

If that sounds like the community you’ve been looking for, I’d love to welcome you here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/englishconversationforwomen

Please answer the questions so I can check you’re a good fit for the group. And please note that it’s only for women.

I do have another Facebook group which is for everyone. You can find that one here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/learnenglishwithkatie

---

Saying the years

I’m often surprised which social media posts do well. My most popular post on Facebook so far this year was this one:

It's now 2025!
But how do you say it?
Two thousand twenty-five?
Two thousand and twenty-five?
Twenty twenty-five?

Very simple but it got a lot of responses.

And here’s my answer:

Nowadays, most people say “twenty twenty-five”.

However, you will occasionally hear British people saying “two thousand and twenty-five”. And you might hear American people saying “two thousand twenty-five” without “and”.

(This is about how we say it, not how we write it. We always write the numbers, not the words.)

Before the year 2000, we said most years like this:

1994 = nineteen ninety-four
1766 = seventeen sixty-six

So we divide the digits into two groups of two and say the two numbers we see.

There are a few exceptions:

1903 = nineteen oh three (or much less commonly, nineteen hundred and three)
1800 = eighteen hundred

Notice how we say “oh” like the letter O, and not “zero”.

Then we entered the new millennium and things changed:

2000 = two thousand, or the year two thousand
2001 = two thousand and one - UK / two thousand one - USA
2009 = two thousand and nine - UK / two thousand nine - USA

Sometimes we say “the year two thousand” to make it clear that it’s not the number 2000.

You can also say “twenty oh one” or “twenty oh nine” according to various dictionaries but I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say that. I think this could change in the future though as language evolves.

Be sure you don’t forget the “oh” though because “twenty nine” is 29, not 2009!

When we reached 2010, things got a bit complicated! There are two different ways to say it:

2010 = twenty ten or two thousand and ten

Over the next few years, the first style became more common and the second style became less common. I even remember hearing a couple of people correcting themselves on the radio, like this, “In two thousand and eleven, oh, I mean twenty eleven …”

When the Olympic Games were held in London in 2012, it was referred to as “London twenty twelve”. It’s possible that this is when we started to switch from one style to the other.

By 2020, or perhaps earlier than that, it was much more common to say “twenty …” than “two thousand…” Try saying “two thousand and twenty” and you’ll notice it’s longer and more effort to say than “twenty twenty”. When there are two choices, we often go for the quickest or easiest way to say something.

But it’s still more common to say “two thousand …” for the years from 2000 to 2009.

So you can say “two thousand and twenty-five” if you want to but it sounds a bit strange. Maybe in the future, it will be considered completely incorrect. As I said earlier, language is always evolving.

Nowadays “twenty twenty-five” is the most common and most natural way to say 2025.

How do we say the years from a long time ago? Here are a few examples:

1066 = ten sixty-six
1000 = (the year) one thousand
512 = five twelve or, less commonly, (the year) five hundred and twelve, in British English
33 AD = (the year) thirty-three AD (“ay dee”)
400 BC = (the year) four hundred BC (“bee cee”) or 400 years before Christ

BC means “before Christ” and AD means “anno domini”, which is Latin for “the year of the lord”. I’ve heard people say “BC” and “before Christ”. It’s not common to say “anno domini” and I imagine a lot of people don’t know what AD stands for anyway.

Nowadays, some people don’t like using AD and BC because of the Christian origins of these abbreviations. A non-religious alternative is CE (Common Era) and BCE (Before the Common Era).

---

I hope that helped. Don’t forget to come and join one or both of my Facebook groups!

See you next week!

Katie