How do people say years in English? For ESL learners, it is confusing and a little complicated. Let's take the year 2013 for example. Most people would read two thousand thirteen or two thousand and thirteen. Some may read twenty thirteen. Basically, we tend to read four-digit years as a pair of 2-digit numbers. For example, 1997 is nineteen ninety-seven. We read three- digit years as a pair or the way we count money. 763 is seven sixty-three or seven hundredn and sixty three.

BC means before Christ. AD is the abbreviation of Anno Domini. 1970s means a period of ten years (a decade) from 1970 to 1979. We try to list the most common ways to read years. We hope that you will have a better understanding of reading years in English. To improve your listening, please listen over and over again.

Play all the years and repeat three times. Listen and improve listening comprehension.