SAYING NUMBERS

"If you can actually count your money then you are not really a rich man"
John Paul Getty

Oh, Zero, Love, Nought, Nil

In football scores In tennis After a decimal point In telephone numbers In bus numbers In hotel room numbers In years For the number We say Zero For temperature We say Nought Before the decimal point We say Nil We say Love We say Oh 5-0 15-0 5.03 3205610 No. 105 Room 202 1906 0 - 5 0.02 Man Utd beat Milan five nil fifteen love five point oh three three two oh five six one oh get the one oh five bus I'm in room two oh two nineteen oh six zero Minus 5 / five degrees below zero nought point oh two

Now say the following: 1. Can you put that on my bill please? I'm in room 301. 2. My name is Bond, James Bond, 007 licensed to kill. 3. Last year it got as low as 25 degrees below 0 in the mountains. 4. What's the score? 2-0 to Chelsea 5. My daughter was born in the noughties

The Decimal Point

In English we use the point (.) and not a comma (,) for decimals. We use commas in figures only when writing thousands 10,001 10.001 Ten thousand and one Ten point double oh one

In English all the numbers after the decimal point are read separately 10.77 0.325 0.001 Ten point seven seven Nought point three two five Nought point double oh one Not ten point seventy seven. Or 10-3, ten to the power minus three

N.B. This is very important on the telephone - It is easy to hear the difference between Nought point three seven five (0.375) and Nought point three hundred and seventy-five. Currency is different however Dollars and Cents, or Pounds and Pence $19.99 12.50 15.55 23,000,000 Nineteen dollars ninety-nine Twelve pounds fifty Fifteen euros fifty-five Not 2300,000,000.00 Or nineteen dollars ninety-nine cents Or twelve pounds fifty pence (Which is the correct plural EURO or EUROS?) With large values eliminate the cents

Now say the following: i It's somewhere between 3.488 and 3.491 ii It's less than 0.001 - it's hardly worth worrying about. iii Thats about 25.30 in American dollars iv No, I meant 10,002 not 10.002 English Training 04/10/2012 Saying numbers Page 1 of 4

Percentages
10% Ten per CENT Not ten PER cent

The stress is on CENT:

In economics we often use fractions when talking about percentages. 0.5% 0.25% A half of one percent A quarter of one percentage point Or nought point five percent Or nought point two five per cent

e.g. the Federal Reserve cut the fed funds rate by three-quarters of a percentage point (CNN March 18 2008) Now say the following: 1. Profits have increased by only 0.75% 2. What's 30 % of 220? 3. They've put the interest rate up by 0.25%

Hundreds, Thousands and Millions

123 A hundred and twenty three / a hundred n twenty three In American English A hundred twenty three One thousand nine hundred and ninety nine Nineteen ninety nine Nineteen hundred Nineteen oh one Two thousand and nine Twenty fifteen In British English A million or ten to the power six. (106) A billion or ten to the power nine. (109) 6. Why do you guys in England say 175? In the States we say 175. 7.My favourite story is 101 Dalmations 8.No, I said 15,000,000,000 not 15,000,000 9. None of the predictions about computers crashing at the start of 2000 came true

1,999 1999 1900 1901 2009 2015 1,000,000 1,000,000,000

Now say the following: 1. 156 2. 156,000 3. 156,156 4. 156,156,156 5. 156,156,156,156

Squares, Cubes and Roots

102 103 90.5 Ten squared Ten cubed The square root of nine

Telephone and Fax numbers

491315 491135 800 223355 0800 223355 0039 039 325647 Four nine one three one five Four nine double one three five Eight hundred, double two, double three, double five Oh eight hundred, double two, double three, double five Double Oh three nine, oh three nine, three two five six four seven

English Training 04/10/2012

Saying numbers

Page 2 of 4

Fractions
1 1

Fractions are generally like ordinal numbers (first, second, tenth etc) /2 /4 1 /3 4 /7 21/2 A half A quarter A third Four sevenths Two and a half

Now read the following: In an opinion poll published today, over 3/4 of the electorate say they intend to vote in next month's election. 1/4 of voters say they will definitley vote YES, while 1/3 will vote NO. But that leaves over 2/5 of the voters who haven't made up their minds!

Calculating
10 + 4 = 14 10 - 4 = 6 10 * 4 = 40 10 / 4 = 2.5 + * / Or ten plus four is fourteen Ten plus four equals fourteen Or ten minus four is six Ten minus four equals six Ten multiplied by four equals forty Ten divided by four equals two point five Add Subtract or deduct Multiply Divide

Remember to pronounce the s in EQUALS. It is a verb (singular) - the part on the left equals the part on the right

Exercise
Say the following as fast as possible 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 234,567 285,698,236 234,816,456 368,352,312 1.234 0.0032 0.0032% 343.205 201.303 11 35.50 12 19,999 13 1999 14 2,301 15 2005 16 2015 17 The phone number is 0045 45 455684 18 The fax is 0043 42 4056678 19 30 * 25 = 750 20 30 / 25 = 1.2

10 $24.35

English Training 24/10/2002

Saying numbers

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Extra Exercise
Say the following as fast as possible 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 Last year we shipped 524,569 orders It employs 226,695 people The turnover was 458,236,000 To be more precise it was exactly 458,236,021.38 Last year I lost 26,500 on the stock exchange The FTSE100 stands at 5,652 Our fax number is 0039 02 511025789 The price per unit is 26.15 The payback period is 5.25 years

10 The margin of error is 0.236 11 The best discount I can give is 4% on orders over 25,000 12 He should retire in 2033 13 He set up the company in 2001 14 10 2 15 His telephone number is 0039 039 326105 16 17.3% of replies were positive 17 The tax rate is 37% on incomes above 36,300 18 Local property tax is 0.8% of the value of the property 19 Turnover increased by 8.45% 20 368,352,312

English Training 24/10/2002

Saying numbers

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