Numbers, dates and time

When you need it

Numbers, dates and times come up in almost every practical conversation: giving a phone number, booking a table, arranging to meet, filling in a form, reading a timetable. They are also where small differences from Ukrainian and Russian cause real misunderstandings, such as a meeting on the wrong day or a number ten times too large. Learn the words, and learn how English writes them and reads them aloud.

Core words

In everyday speech people use the 12-hour clock and add in the morning, in the afternoon or in the evening; in writing they add a.m. or p.m. The 24-hour clock appears on timetables and is read as plain numbers: 18.40 is eighteen forty. You can also say any time as two numbers: 7.45 is seven forty-five. British English often writes 7.45, American English 7:45.

Dates are written differently in Britain and in the United States. In Britain you write 5 May 2026 or 5/5/2026, day first, and say the fifth of May. In the United States you write May 5, 2026, month first, and say May fifth. So 04/07 is 4 July in Britain but April 7 in the United States; on international forms, write the month as a word.

Useful phrases

• What time is it? or What's the time? — It's ten past five.
• What time does it start? — At half past seven.
• What's the date today? — It's the third of March.
• When's your birthday? — It's on the twelfth of June.
• How old are you? — I'm nineteen.
• What's your phone number? — It's oh seven seven one… In British English a repeated digit is often read as double: 0771 can be oh double seven one.
• half an hour (30 minutes), a quarter of an hour (15 minutes): The train leaves in half an hour.
• It takes twenty minutes. — It takes twenty minutes to walk to school.
• at six o'clock, on Monday, on 5 May, in May, in 2019: the full rules are in prepositions of time.

Common mistakes

• ✗ The bottle holds 1,5 litres. The town has 25.000 people.
  ✓ The bottle holds 1.5 litres. The town has 25,000 people.
  Ukrainian and Russian write a comma for decimals and a space or point between thousands; English does the opposite, so 1.5 is read one point five.
• ✗ There were two hundreds people. My city has three millions people.
  ✓ There were two hundred people. My city has three million people.
  After a number, hundred, thousand and million never take -s, even though дві тисячі / две тысячи changes form; hundreds of people is only for an unknown large number.
• ✗ It's six hours. The lesson starts at eighteen hours.
  ✓ It's six o'clock. The lesson starts at six in the evening.
  Russian шесть часов uses the word for hours, but English hours means duration only (the lesson lasts two hours); for clock time use o'clock or just the number.
• ✗ I was born in 5 May.
  ✓ I was born on 5 May.
  A date is a single day, and days take on; in is for months and years, so in May but on 5 May.
• ✗ See you on monday, 3 june.
  ✓ See you on Monday, 3 June.
  Days and months always begin with a capital letter in English, unlike понеділок, червень / понедельник, июнь.

Try it