Comments on: Saying dates

By: dangkhoa nguyen

dangkhoa nguyen — Fri, 18 Dec 2009 00:17:58 +0000

I think every language on the earth has its own way to the other when it has been used for a long time . So does the English language because it’s easy for everybody to use in everyday activities to deal with other people. The numbers “one two three” become ” quanh tu ti” in Vietnamese, or the French words”dire/bavard” “dia/ba hoa” in Vietnamese. 2010 is translated in Vietnamese” hai ngan muoi”; 2011,”hai ngan muoi mot”( The Vietnamese phrase has four sounds while the English six syllables). But I agree that each language has each usage, in actual fact, when that usual langue gets its own way to connect to real life, it’ll change in the way it’ll do. In fact we needn’t worry about how we use the saying dates. Let them be done when they’re used.

By: Priscila Laterza

Priscila Laterza — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 20:24:54 +0000

I don’t think non-native speakers will “transfer” from their mother tongue. As a speaker of Portuguese I have never done that, and that’s probably because we learn how dates are said in English so we just get used to them. Why should/might it be different in the future? Each language has its own usage, and students are usually taught that.

By: dangkhoa nguyen

dangkhoa nguyen — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 00:20:14 +0000

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By: María Jesús Heranz Martínez

María Jesús Heranz Martínez — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 15:31:16 +0000

Since we have started the decade changing the way of saying the years I think that we must continue it using the same form as we do it. It could be risky if we decide to change it now.

By: Kati Sule

Kati Sule — Thu, 10 Dec 2009 13:53:54 +0000

Here’s somebody else wondering how we’re going to be calling the next decade: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/dec/07/end-noughties-name-next-decade

By: Steve Hall

Steve Hall — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 07:00:36 +0000

“Two thousand” has three syllables; “twenty hundred” has four. “Twenty-oh-nine” has 4 syllables; “two-thousand-nine” has three (although “two-thousand-and-nine” has four).

On the other hand, “twenty-ten” has three syllables, and there is no other reasonable construction with as few. And if the evolution of English has proved nothing else, it’s that we are lazy speakers. There’s no contest: “twenty” beats out “two-thousand” for the remainder of the century.

By: Liz Potter

Liz Potter — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 13:51:23 +0000

A couple more examples of how we say years. A friend came up with the song “In the Year 2525 (Exordium and Terminus)” – yes, really – by a duo called Zager and Evans, which was in the charts in 1969. I remember it, so that dates me as well as him. That’s said ‘twenty-five twenty-five’, of course. In the opposite corner is the Kubrick film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In this case I can’t imagine that anyone ever says anything other than ‘two thousand and one’.

By: Stephan Hughes

Stephan Hughes — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:42:07 +0000

I tend to agree with you that most people will go for the double digit system (twenty one hundred and not two thousand one hundred). Mind you, non-native speakers might most probably “transfer” from their native tongue and use the extended form. Spanish, Portuguese and French speakers will be clear examples of that.

By: Kati Sule

Kati Sule — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:21:49 +0000

I suspect that the switch from the 'old' system to a new one at the year 2000 may have happened partly because of the significance of that year, i.e. the move from one millennium (now did I spell that correctly?) into another. As the years go by they lose something of that significance and the move back to the 'old' system comes quite naturally.