The day of the month
| Date | Said | Note |
|---|---|---|
| 1 October | il primo ottobre | the one ordinal |
| 2 October | il due ottobre | |
| 8 October | l’otto ottobre | il elides before a vowel |
| 11 October | l’undici ottobre | il elides before a vowel |
| 21 October | il ventuno ottobre | vowel drop, as in counting |
| 23 October | il ventitré ottobre | the accent stays |
| 31 October | il trentuno ottobre |
Years: one cardinal, one word
An Italian year is read as a single number, not split into pairs: millenovecentonovanta, not “nineteen ninety”. It takes the masculine article, so “in 1990” is nel 1990 and “since 2001” is dal 2001.
| Year | Italian |
|---|---|
| 1492 | millequattrocentonovantadue |
| 1861 | milleottocentosessantuno |
| 1946 | millenovecentoquarantasei |
| 1968 | millenovecentosessantotto |
| 1990 | millenovecentonovanta |
| 1999 | millenovecentonovantanove |
| 2000 | duemila |
| 2001 | duemilauno |
| 2008 | duemilaotto |
| 2023 | duemilaventitré |
| 2026 | duemilaventisei |
Every year above comes from the site’s checked engine, so the rules from the big numbers page apply: mille keeps its e (milleottocentosessantuno), and a year ending in 3 takes the accent (duemilaventitré).
’72: the short year
For years near the speaker’s own life or famous in history, Italian replaces the first two digits with an apostrophe, a usage the Enciclopedia dell’Italiano illustrates with Io sono del ’72 and I ragazzi del ’99. Read it as the cardinal: del settantadue.
The named centuries
From the 1200s to the 1900s each century has a name taken from its hundreds, capitalised, and used much more than the Roman numeral in talk about art and history:
| Italian | Years |
|---|---|
| il Duecento | 1200s |
| il Trecento | 1300s |
| il Quattrocento | 1400s |
| il Cinquecento | 1500s |
| il Seicento | 1600s |
| il Settecento | 1700s |
| l’Ottocento | 1800s |
| il Novecento | 1900s |
So il Quattrocento is the fifteenth century, the 1400s, also written il XV secolo. The ordinals page covers the Roman numerals.