How To Write Dates in Spanish

There is  a variety of subtle differences between writing common things in English and in Spanish. Such is the case with writing dates in the two languages: Where in English one might say February 5, 2019, a Spanish writer would express the date as 5 de febrero de 2019. Key Takeaways: Writing Dates in Spanish The most common way of writing dates in Spanish follows the form number de month de year.Names of the months are not capitalized in Spanish.With the exception of primero for first, the ordinal numbers are not used in dates in Spanish. Note that in Spanish the name of the month isnt capitalized. You can also spell out the number — as in cinco de enero de 2012 — but this is less common than using a numeral in the example above. However, in parts of Latin America, especially in areas with U.S. influence, you may also see the form abril 15 de 2018 in occasional use, and rarely you may see a period used in the year such as 2.006. Another important distinction is that in Spanish you should not imitate English by using ordinal forms such as tercero de marzo as a direct translation of third of March. The one exception is that you may say primero for first, so January 1st can be said as primero de enero. In numeral form, thats 1o, or a 1 followed by superscripted o, not a degree sign. Less commonly, the form 1ero is used. As in the examples below, dates are typically preceded by the definite article el in sentences. Sample Sentences Showing Use of Dates in Spanish El 16 de septiembre de 1810 era  el dà ­a de independencia de Mà ©xico. (Sept. 16, 1810, was Mexicos independence day.) La Epifanà ­a se celebras el 6 de enero de cada aà ±o en los paà ­ses hispanohablantes. (Epiphany is celebrated in Jan. 6 of each year in Spanish-speaking countries.) El 1 de enero es el primer dà ­a del aà ±o en el calendario gregoriano. (Jan. 1 is the first month of the year of the Gregorian calendar.) El proceso de recuento parcial comenzà ³ el 3 de mayo y todavà ­a continà ºa. (The partial recount process began on May 3 and still continues.) Desde el aà ±o de 1974, el primero de julio celebramos el Dà ­a del Ingeniero en Mà ©xico. (Since the year 1974, we celebrate the Day of the Engineer on July 1st.) Use of Roman Numerals and Abbreviated Forms In abbreviated form, Spanish typically follows a day-month-year pattern using a capitalized Roman numeral for the month. The units may be separated by spaces, slashes, or hyphens. Thus the abbreviated form of July 4, 1776, can be written in these ways: 4 VII 1776, 4/VII/1776, and 4-VII-1776. Theyre the equivalent of 7/4/1776 in American English or 4/7/1776 in British English. Common forms used for B.C. are aC and a. de C. —  for antes de Cristo  or before Christ — with variations in punctuation and sometimes the use of J.C. (Jesucristo) instead of merely using the letter  C. In scholarly writing, you may use AEC  as the equivalent of the English BCE, which means antes de la Era Comà ºn  or Before the Common Era. The equivalent of A.D. is despuà ©s de Cristo  or after Christ and can be abbreviated d. de C.  or dC  with the same variations as noted above. You also may use EC  (Era Comà ºn) for CE (Common Era). The abbreviations AEC  and EC  are even less commonly used in Spanish than their English equivalents are in English, mainly because they arent universally understood. They normally shouldnt be used unless demanded by the context, such as if writing for publication in an academic journal. Pronouncing the Years The years in Spanish are pronounced the same as other cardinal numbers are. Thus, for example, the year 2040 would be pronounced as dos mil cuarenta. The English custom of pronouncing the centuries separately — in English we typically say twenty-forty instead of two thousand forty — is not followed. Saying veinte cuarenta instead of dos mil cuarenta would strike native Spanish speakers as the mark of an English speaker. Using Prepositions With Dates Spanish does not use a preposition as the equivalent of on when indicating that something happens on a particular date. The date itself functions as an adverbial phrase, as it does in English when on is omitted. Such examples include la masacre ocurrià ³ el 14 de marzo wherein the phrase means The massacre occurred on March 14, with the Spanish word for on (en) not used. Similarly in English, one could correctly say The massacre occurred March 14.   During or throughout, on the other hand, can be added into the phrase by including the Spanish word for this, durante.  Such is the case in the Spanish version of the sentence Space exploration began during the 20th Century, which can be written as Durante el siglo XX dio comenzà ³ la exploracià ³n espacial.