Date and time notation in Sweden

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Date and time notation in Sweden mostly follows the ISO 8601 standard: dates are generally written in the form YYYY-MM-DD. Although this format may be abbreviated in a number of ways, almost all Swedish date notations state the month between the year and the day. Months are not capitalised when written. The week number may also be used in writing and in speech. Times are generally written using 24-hour clock notation, with full stops (dots or periods) as separators, although 12-hour clock notation is more frequently used in speech.

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Date

In Sweden, the ISO 8601 standard is followed in most written Swedish, but older forms remain. Dates are generally and officially written in the form YYYY-MM-DD, for instance 2001-08-31 for 31 August 2001, or using the full format (31 augusti 2001). Dates can also be shortened, allowing for two-digit years, so the dates are usually written in the form YY-MM-DD, which means that 31 August 2001 can also be written as 01-08-31. One can also omit the hyphens, leaving the notation as 010831. Older forms for 31 August 2001 are 31/8 2001, or with the two-digit notation 31/8 -01. The common trait for all Swedish date notations is that the month (August or 8) always is between the year (01) and the day (31st). Months are not capitalised when written using letters (i.e. augusti, not Augusti).

The "month, day, year" notation ("08-31-2001") is not used in Swedish, but may be used in Lule Sami, Northern Sami and Southern Sami languages.

The numbering of weeks is frequently used in companies and schools, and is simply expressed as in "(vecka) 32" (week) 32 in both writing (abbreviated v.) and speech. On labels and in computer notation, the year may also be included, as in "2006W32". As in the ISO standard, the week begins on a Monday and week 1 is the week containing the year's first Thursday.

Time

Times are written with the 24-hour clock, with full stops as separators (although colons are sometimes used instead of full stops)[ citation needed ]. However, seconds are usually left out if the additional precision is not required; for example: 23.59, or sometimes 23.59.00. Leading zeros are mostly used in time notation (i.e. 04.00 is more common than 4.00). In spoken Swedish however, the 12-hour clock is much more common. The written notation can be pronounced directly with the equivalent of "and" between the hour and minute, although this is not very common in everyday conversation. The 24-hour time is always applied on the last form, may be applied to the second form and is never used with rounded time as in the first form.[ clarification needed ] Seconds are very seldom expressed at all in speech. For example: 14.27 may be pronounced as "tre minuter i halv tre" (three minutes to half three), "tjugosju (minuter) över två/fjorton" (twenty seven (minutes) past two/fourteen), or, most commonly: "fjorton och tjugosju" (fourteen and twenty seven). 16.00 may be pronounced as "fyra" (four) or "sexton" (sixteen). Usually time is rounded to the nearest multiple of 5 minutes. Examples of ways of expressing time in spoken Swedish (transliterated into English):

In these styles, the word for "minutes" is usually but not always left out.

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A calendar date is a reference to a particular day represented within a calendar system. The calendar date allows the specific day to be identified. The number of days between two dates may be calculated. For example, "25 January 2023" is ten days after "15 January 2023". The date of a particular event depends on the observed time zone. For example, the air attack on Pearl Harbor that began at 7:48 a.m. Hawaiian time on 7 December 1941 took place at 3:18 a.m. Japan Standard Time, 8 December in Japan.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ISO 8601</span> International standards for dates and times

ISO 8601 is an international standard covering the worldwide exchange and communication of date and time-related data. It is maintained by the Geneva-based International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and was first published in 1988, with updates in 1991, 2000, 2004, and 2019, and an amendment in 2022. The standard provides a well-defined, unambiguous method of representing calendar dates and times in worldwide communications, especially to avoid misinterpreting numeric dates and times when such data is transferred between countries with different conventions for writing numeric dates and times.

The modern 24-hour clock, popularly referred to in the United States as militarytime, is the convention of timekeeping in which the day runs from midnight to midnight and is divided into 24 hours. This is indicated by the hours passed since midnight, from 0(:00) to 23(:59). This system, as opposed to the 12-hour clock, is the most commonly used time notation in the world today, and is used by the international standard ISO 8601.

Different conventions exist around the world for date and time representation, both written and spoken.

Date and time notation in Canada combines conventions from the United Kingdom, conventions from the United States, and conventions from France, often creating confusion. The Government of Canada specifies the ISO 8601 format for all-numeric dates. It recommends writing the time using the 24-hour clock (20:52) for maximum clarity in both Canadian English and Canadian French, but also allows the 12-hour clock (8:52 p.m.) in English.

Date and time notation in the United States differs from that used in nearly all other countries. It is inherited from one historical branch of conventions from the United Kingdom. American styles of notation have also influenced customs of date notation in Canada, creating confusion in international commerce.

In Finland, the usual way of writing dates in normal text is with the months spelled out. The format varies according to the language used. In Finnish, a full stop is placed after the day to indicate an ordinal: “31. toukokuuta 2002”; furthermore, the month is in the partitive case, always marked by -ta. The month can also be written first, now in genitive case : “toukokuun 31. pnä 2002”. In Swedish, the full stop is not used and the month is in nominative : “den 31 maj 2002”.

In Poland, the official system for representing dates and times follows the international ISO 8601 standard. However, in less official use, other conventions prevail, such as the day-month-year order and several Polish language abbreviations.

Date and time notation in the United Kingdom records the date using the day–month–year format. The ISO 8601 format (1999-12-31) is increasingly used for all-numeric dates. The time can be written using either the 24-hour clock (23:59) or the 12-hour clock (11:59 pm).

The European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and (CENELEC) adopted ISO 8601 with EN 28601, now EN ISO 8601. As a European Norm, CEN and CENELEC member states are obligated to adopt the standard as national standard without alterations as well.

ISO 8601 has been adopted as BIS IS 7900:2001.

The Philippines has not officially adopted any time and date representation standard based on the ISO 8601. Notation practices across the country are in various, customary formats.

The most formal manner of expressing the full date and/or time in South Korea is to suffix each of the year, month, day, ante/post-meridiem indicator, hour, minute and second with the corresponding unit and separating each with a space:

Date and time notation in Vietnam describes methods of expressing date and time used in Vietnam.

Date and time notation in New Zealand most commonly records the date using the day-month-year format, while the ISO 8601 format (2023-01-04) is increasingly used for all-numeric dates, such as date of birth. The time can be written using either the 12-hour clock or the 24-hour clock (23:38).

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