 The most common way to pronounce years is to say the first two digits as one number and the last digits as another two-digit number, like 2023, or my birthday, 1987. We use this method of saying years at VOA Learning English. With the start of the new millennium, the way that we say the years changed a little. In some cases, we use two-digit chunks. But for the years 2001 to 2009, we use the word thousand.