Dates and ordinals

Dates and ordinals

So far you’ve listened to 6 Minute English and practised spelling ordinal numbers. Now let’s practise using dates correctly.

This is where Marcus comes in. He’s a very disorganised man. He’s always losing his diary and getting confused about dates. Which is bad for him – but good for us, because it lets us practise more ordinals!

We’re going to read a short story about Marcus, then answer some questions. But first, let’s review:

Remember

We often say dates with the and of:

the eighth of April
But we can also say:

April the eighth
(And April eighth in American English)
But we don’t write them like that. We write them as:

8th April
April 8th
8 April

We usually use the definite article the with ordinal numbers:

on the first evening
The second time I tried sushi
But sometimes we use possessives:

my seventieth birthday
Bob’s second car
Read the text and complete the activity