Las fechas Telling dates thats pretty easy right

Las fechas

Telling dates – that’s pretty easy, right? Actually, it is. It’s just not done the same way in Spanish and English. August 25 th, 2020 = el veinticinco de agosto de 2020 January 12 th, 2021 = el doce de enero de 2021 Don’t worry about saying the year yet, since you can’t count that high. But you should note that you need “de” in the complete date twice. Perhaps most significant is the fact that Spanish uses cardinal (two, three, four, etc. ) numbers rather than ordinal (second, third, fourth, etc. ) numbers to tell dates. You won’t learn the ordinal numbers until Chapter 4, so not knowing how to say, for example, “ninth, ” should make it easy for you not to use them accidentally!

Let’s look again: August 25 th, 2020 = el veinticinco de agosto de 2020 January 12 th, 2021 = el doce de enero de 2021 Except for the “th” part, we CAN say dates in this order. Think about how we talk about Independence Day: The Fourth of July That’s almost identical to how we would say it in Spanish: el cuatro de julio And although we would probably say that today is August 20 th We COULD say and even might say that today is the 20 th of August

And we wouldn’t even say 20 th of August But THE 20 th of August. We wouldn’t leave out “the”; it doesn’t sound right. Likewise, you can’t leave “el” out of the Spanish phrase. So if you think of Spanish dates as starting with “the, ” you should be able to get it right with no problem. Just remember not to try to figure out “twentieth” and be happy you can just say “veinte”!

OK, there is one exception (isn’t there always at least one? ) to the use of cardinal (20) rather than ordinal (20 th) numbers: Hoy es el primero de septiembre. – Today is the first of September. In Spanish, we have to say “primero (first)” and never “uno. ” However, if we want to say August 21 st or 31 st, we DO use “uno”: el veintiuno de agosto el treinta y uno de agosto That’s not too complicated an exception, right?

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