how we read years

[nataly]

Hi friends,

How do we read the years before 1000. For example 861 /eight sixty one or eight hundred sixty one/.
And one more question: do we need "the" with "next time". For example:
(The) next time I see you, we'll have dinner together.


Thank you,
Nataly

[Pete]

Hi friends,

How do we read the years before 1000. For example 861 /eight sixty one or eight hundred sixty one/.
And one more question: do we need "the" with "next time". For example:
(The) next time I see you, we'll have dinner together.


Thank you,
Nataly
I don't know how to look up an official answer to the question about pronouncing the numbers that correspond to particular years. Neither of your suggestions would sound wrong or unusual to me. I'd probably use "eight sixty one" myself. (But I'm still surprised that people call this year "two thousand five", when I'd expected it would be called "twenty oh five". I'm sure that 1905 was called "nineteen oh five".


When you use "next time" to mean the next time after the present, you commonly do not use "the" unless you are trying to emphasize that you especially mean the very next time, maybe because you were not able to do something "this time", even though you wanted to.

When the reference point for "next time" is some other time than the present, you would use "the":
- I'll see you when I'm in town in April, and the next time I see you will be your birthday in August.