Grammar ~20 min of the core left

Say the date and your birthday

After this lesson you can

I can say a date, ask about someone's birthday and understand a date in a letter.

Start the lesson Core 18–20 min · steps: 6 · optional: +2

Declared core time. Two of the core blocks carry no figure at all, so the real lesson is longer than this sum.

Grammar

4 min

Ordinal numbers (the numbers for order) are made with the ending -th, except first, second, third and the numbers made with them (twenty-first, thirty-second):

1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 12th 20th 21st
first second third fourth fifth twelfth twentieth twenty-first

Spelling: nine → ninth (the letter e goes), five → fifth, twelve → twelfth (ve changes to f), twenty → twentieth (y changes to ie).

The date the British way:

on the third of May 3 May
on the twenty-first of June 21 June
My birthday is in May. only the month, not the day

Prepositions: on with a date and a day, in with a month and a year — the same rule as in lesson 10.

British and American dates are written in a different order, and this is a trap:

written said
British 3 May 2026 / 03/05/2026 the third of May
American May 3, 2026 / 05/03/2026 May third

03/05 in London is 3 May; in New York it is 5 March. This course teaches the British way of writing dates.

Months are written with a capital letter: January, February, March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December.

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Common learner errors

written for your language
1

Months with a small letter

✗ in may

✓ in May

Many languages write months with a small letter (Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Dutch, Polish), and many scripts have no capital letters at all, so the error stays for years — as with nationalities in lesson 2.

2

A date with a normal number

✗ on three May

✓ on the third of May

Many languages say the date with a normal number, not an ordinal one: French le trois mai, Spanish el tres de mayo, Portuguese três de maio, Italian il tre maggio, Chinese wǔ yuè sān hào ("five month three day"). In English the day is always an ordinal number.

3

The preposition with a month

✗ on May → ✓ in May; ✗ in the third of May → ✓ on the third of May. Some languages use one word for both: Portuguese em maio and em 3 de maio, Arabic fī for both, Turkish one ending (mayısta, 3 Mayıs'ta). English has two: in with a month, on with a date.

Pronunciation

3 min

-th in ordinal numbers is the voiceless /θ/ from lesson 4, with the tip of the tongue between the teeth: fourth /fɔːθ/, fifth /fɪfθ/, sixth /sɪksθ/.

The hardest ones are sixth /sɪksθ/ and twelfth /twelfθ/: three consonants in a row. Say them slowly, and do not put a vowel between them.

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Text

3 min

My birthday is on the third of May. My sister's birthday is in December. Last year we were in Italy on the twenty-first of June. The shop opens on the first of September. I bought the tickets on the fifteenth of August.

Reading aloud

Exercises

8–10 min

1. Write in words.

1st, 3rd, 5th, 12th, 21st

Show the answers
first, third, fifth, twelfth, twenty-first.

2. Gap fill.

  1. My birthday is May
  2. The shop opens the first of June
  3. We were there 2020
  4. I work Monday
Show the answers
in, on, in, on.

3. Error correction.

  1. My birthday is in may.
  2. on three May
  3. The shop opens on September.
Show the answers
My birthday is in May. / on the third of May / The shop opens in September.

4. Matching.

  1. 3 May
  2. 5 March
Show the answers
British `03/05/2026` — 3 May; American — 5 March.
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Summary

Covered

  • ordinal numbers
  • dates
  • months
  • the difference between British and American dates

Next — lesson 32: plans.

End of the core

The lesson counts as done once the exercises are done. Everything after this is optional.

Lesson 32

optional

Vocabulary for your deck

15 words
  • birthday /ˈbɜːθdeɪ/ the day each year when you were born
  • date /deɪt/ the day and month (the third of May)
  • January /ˈdʒænjuəri/ the first month of the year
  • February /ˈfebruəri/ the second month of the year
  • March /mɑːtʃ/ the third month of the year
  • April /ˈeɪprəl/ the fourth month of the year
  • May /meɪ/ the fifth month of the year
  • June /dʒuːn/ the sixth month of the year
  • July /dʒuˈlaɪ/ the seventh month of the year
  • August /ˈɔːɡəst/ the eighth month of the year
  • September /sepˈtembə/ the ninth month of the year
  • October /ɒkˈtəʊbə/ the tenth month of the year
  • November /nəʊˈvembə/ the eleventh month of the year
  • December /dɪˈsembə/ the last month of the year
  • fifth /fɪfθ/ number five in order

Writing

Four sentences: when your birthday is, when someone in your family has a birthday, when you were on holiday.

Example

My birthday is on the third of May. My brother's birthday is in December. Last year I was on holiday in August.

Checklist

The draft is saved on this device
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Practise this lesson in the other sections

Dictationbased on this lesson Write down what you hear. The check shows every word that differs, and how. Write the dictation Reading aloudbased on this lesson Read the lesson text aloud — speech recognition highlights the words it did not catch. Read the text aloud Reading and listeningA1–C1 Texts at every level with comprehension questions; the transcript opens after you answer. Try it

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