Saying Numbers

Form

English says numbers aloud in set patterns you have to learn, and they rarely match the patterns of your own language (1,500 is fifteen hundred, 2026 is twenty twenty-six).

Read a long number in groups of three digits from the right, naming each group — billion, million, thousand — and do not add -s to those words after a number (two million, not two millions). After a decimal point, say the digits one at a time (3.75 is three point seven five), and in careful American English leave the word and out of a number (305 is three hundred five). A zero is usually said as oh inside a room number, an address or a year (406 is four oh six).

When to Use It

1. 1

   Round numbers between about 1,100 and 1,900, which are usually said in hundreds

   The laptop cost sixteen hundred dollars.

2. 2

   Most years, said as two pairs of digits

   The company was founded in nineteen eighty-seven.

3. 3

   Fractions, where the bottom number is said like an ordinal (third, fifth) and takes -s if the top number is more than one

   Two thirds of the students are from Brazil.

4. 4

   Prices, where the words dollars and cents are often dropped

   It came to three seventy-five.

5. 5

   Phone numbers, read one digit at a time, and room numbers, read in digits or in pairs

   She is in room four oh six.

6. 6

   Temperatures below zero, said with below zero or with minus

   It was five below zero this morning.

Common Mistakes

• A plural million: say three million people, not three millions people — hundred, thousand, million and billion stay singular after a number.
• A decimal read as a whole number: say three point seven five, not three point seventy-five — every digit after the point is said on its own.
• Percent with -s: say ninety-eight percent, not ninety-eight percents — percent stays singular after a number.
• Reading a quantity digit by digit: say three hundred five, not three oh five — the digit-by-digit reading is for room numbers, phone numbers and codes, not for amounts.
• A year said as one big number: say seventeen seventy-six, not one thousand seven hundred seventy-six — most years split into two pairs of digits, with 2000 to 2009 as the exception.