How to read ALL NUMBERS in English BIG NUMBERS Decimals Dates Fractions Phones Ordinals

Hello lovely students and welcome back to English with Lucy. Today, I'm going to teach you such an important skill. I'm going to teach you how to read numbers in English. So many of my students avoid reading big numbers because they're daunting, they're scary. promise you after today's lesson, you will feel so much more confident. I've also created free PDF study guide to go with this video. You can download this for free. Inside, you'll find all of the information about how to read numbers with extra examples and further practice activities. I've also included lots of mathematical facts and figures and there are even some number-based idioms in there. If you'd like to download this PDF numbers study guide, all you have to do is click on the link in the description box and enter your name, your email address and select your estimated level of English. Then, you sign up for my mailing list and the PDF study guide will arrive directly in your inbox. And after that, you've joined the PDF club. You will automatically receive my free weekly PDFs alongside my news, course updates and offers. It's free service and you can unsubscribe at any time. Okay, we're going to start at the very beginning, but it is going to get more complicated. How do we say this number? Okay, this is actually good question because there are various ways we can say this number. We can use the word zero or we can say naught. Now, when we say numbers one at time, like when you need to give your phone number or bank account number, we normally say as in the letter For example, my bank account number is 01765. Just kidding. Okay, let's practice with couple of my exes' phone numbers. just kidding, they're fake. And remember in English, we tend to read each number separately, but we chunk them into groups of two or three. So, for this one, 704-8695. If the same number appears twice, we usually say double. For example, double 2 double 4. Now, notice how my intonation goes up as say the first three numbers or digits, and then falls as read the last three. This signals to the listener that the number has finished. Double 36 2 double 4. Okay, let's move on to temperature. When we're talking about temperature, we use zero, not naught. For example, the temperatures are unlikely to rise above zero all week. And football results, very important. How would you say this final score? Well, in British English, we usually say nil. So, Liverpool beat Man United 1-0, or they beat Man United by one goal to nil. Americans are more likely to say 1-0 or 1 nothing. Okay, let's move on to some frequently confused numbers. How would you pronounce these pairs of numbers? Well, the higher numbers on the right are always stressed on the first syllable. 30 60. The lower numbers on the left are usually stressed on teen. 13 14 15, 16. This is the same for all the teen numbers, 13 to 19. Now, say we usually stress the last syllable because the stress can move or shift if we place stressed noun after the number. Listen and see if you can hear the difference. She's 17. She's got 17 exams. In the second sentence, the main stress moves to exams, and seven and teen have more equal stress. Now, this stress shift can leave even proficient English speakers confused. When there's doubt, read out each number to clarify. Did you say 70? No, 17, 1 7. Okay, it's time to move on to some bigger numbers. Take look at these and consider how you would read them as words. Please do pause the video if you want some thinking time, okay? The first is hundred. hundred. We can say 100, but we often just say hundred. Now, be careful, we don't usually add an in the plural, so we just say 100, 200, 300, and so on. You will hear it pluralized in the phrase hundreds and hundreds or hundreds and thousands, and we can also add if we don't say number or quantity before it. For example, hundreds of thousands visit the cathedral every year, or received hundreds of emails while was on holiday. Okay, the next number is thousand, thousand. And the same rules apply here. Question, have you ever seen this written? So, is often used as an abbreviation for thousand. An example, the goal is to raise 3K for charity in under 20 days. Now, did you notice that said 20, not 20? It's very common to elide the sound, especially when speaking fast. Okay, next we have 10,000 and 100,000. Now, remember we don't say 10,000s or 100,000s. million, billion. Notice the sound in those two numbers. Million, billion. Now, let's talk about when we need to add the word and when reading numbers. We always need to say and between 100,000 and million and numbers below 100. That's 1 to 99. Listen carefully cuz this is going to be really helpful for you. This number? 111. This? 1,012. This one, which honestly scares me as well, 1,984,099. We don't need to add and when the number ends in double zero. For example, this one, 1,100, not 1,00100. 1,100. Or this one, 17,300. Note that in American English and other dialects, it's also common to count in hundreds rather than thousands. So, So, British English, we would say 2,500. In American English, sometimes they would say 2,500. Whichever you choose to use, you'll be understood either way. just think it's important you're aware. Right, let's put all of this knowledge to the test and take look at some big numbers. And don't worry, we'll build up gradually. Now, just to add little more fun, all of these numbers have special significance. Maybe you can figure out what it is. And if not, you'll have to download the PDF to find out. Here we go. How do we say this number? I'll divide it to help. It should be 1,331. Notice how pause slightly after the word thousand. We don't usually say and just use an or even Okay, let's try another. How do we say this big number? This time we have 10,989. Okay, let's make these numbers even bigger. What about this one? How many thousands do we have? 111. So, that's 111,000. Moving up to millions now. How do you say this number? Let's divide the number up. We have 3,628,000 800. Remember, we don't need to add and here as the number ends in double zero. Okay. This one is really big one. Take deep breath and have think. We have 1,503,047,000. Okay, great work. Don't worry, have left plenty more examples in the PDF. This does take some practice for you to feel natural. And don't forget to check out the special significance of all of these numbers. Okay, let's move on to ordinal numbers. So, cardinal numbers tell us about quantity, but ordinal numbers tell us about order or the position or place of something. For example, he finished second in the race. We can also use them to say the date. My birthday's on the 10th of June. Let's take look at how we form ordinal numbers. We'll begin with the cardinal numbers here. Most ordinal numbers end in the letters pronounced with the sound. Can you think of which? Pause the video now if you want to have some time to think. Okay, here we are. And we just add to eight. And don't forget to remove the from nine before adding Now, the ordinal numbers for five and 12 are similar, but we need to change the voiced sound, the to the unvoiced sound, the and then add the sound. This makes the words easier to pronounce. So, five becomes fifth and 12 becomes 12th. Now, that's still very hard to pronounce in my opinion. Lots of English speakers, and am one of these speakers, cut it down to fifth and 12th in spoken English. We remove the fifth, 12th. Go ahead and do that if it's easier for you. In fast speech, fifth and 12th is what lot of people say. Notice the vowel change with five to fifth. The diphthong in five becomes the short vowel in fifth. Five, fifth or fifth. Okay, we keep this pattern for the higher ordinal numbers, too. 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and so on. The only irregular ones left in our table are one, two, and three, which become first, second, and third. And if you need to write them as numbers rather than words, just add the last two letters of the word after the number, like this. Okay, have you got that? Let's see if you can read these dates, then. These dates mark important days in history. Download the PDF to find out why. Okay, this one here. In British English, the first number or numbers refer to the day. Then, we have the month. So, in British English, that is the 6th of February. In America and some other countries, this order is switched. So, the 6th of February would be written like this. must say find it so confusing. wish we could agree, because once had catastrophe when booking an American airline ticket, put in my birth date as this. In America, this is the 6th of October 1994, but my birthday is the 10th of June 1994. Just be mindful of that. Okay, reading the year is easy. We just divide the numbers down the middle. 19 18. The 6th of February, 1918. What about this one? Well, the fourth month is April, so we have the 15th of April, 1912. Notice how there's slight pause before say the year. What about this one? Here, we have the 20th. 20th. Although we often don't pronounce the second sound, we might say 20th. The 20th of July, 1969. Let's try one more. Here. The 11th month is November. So, we read this date as the 4th of November 2008. This is where it gets bit confusing. For the years 2001 to 2009, we don't divide. We don't say 2001 or 2002. Instead, we just read the full number 2001, 2002. Once you get to this year, you can do either 2010 or just 2010. Okay, let's take look at fractions next. Here is pie. Maybe it's cake. Or actually, I'm going to say it's pizza. Here is pizza. It's whole pizza. If we divide it in two, we get two halves. I'll have half pizza, please. Be careful with the silent in half. Half. We don't say half. Half. If we divide the pizza into three, then we get thirds. Thirds. Notice how we use the ordinal number here. third of pizza. And we also need to add the word of or of in the weak form before noun. We need to do this with all fractions except half, where of is optional. As said, this is usually pronounced in the weak form of third of pizza. Now, maybe you're really hungry and you want 2/3 of the pizza. That would be written like this, 2/3. Not so hungry? Let's just have quarter of pizza. quarter. We can also use the ordinal number to describe this fraction. ate quarter of pizza. ate fourth of the pizza. But, we usually use the word quarter. Here are some more fractions. How would you say these? Give you 5 seconds. Pause if you need more time, but we have 2/5. Yes, technically it should be 2/5, but 2/5 is so much easier to say. We have 5/6. Now, that's so hard to say. prefer to go for 5/6. 6. We have 4/7 and 9/10. Okay, what about these? Easy. We just have to add and after the first number. 9 and 3/4, 4 and 7/8. Okay, what about this fraction though? Do we really have to say it 243/728? No, thankfully, we can just say over. 243/728. also have more good news. Decimals like this are even easier to read. We simply name each digit individually. 3.141 1.618. You can use not or zero for decimals less than one. For example, not point not seven or zero point zero seven. We can also drop the first not or zero and just say point zero seven. know in some languages you use commas for decimals. Don't get confused, we use commas for thousands. Here for decimals we use full stops or points. Okay, think it's time for test to see how much of that information you've absorbed. Don't put too much pressure on yourself. This is tough. Children at schools in England spend many years learning all of this. It does take little while, but that's why I've included loads of exercises in the PDF study guide. I'm going to give you 3 seconds to think after each question, but press pause if you want little longer. Question number one. How do we say this phone number? So, we say each number individually and group in twos or threes. So, we can say or 916834. Okay, how do we say this fraction? We can say three quarters or three fourths. Three quarters is more common. Remember to add of before noun. For example, I've read about three quarters of the book. Okay, number three. How do we say this huge number? I'll give you 3 seconds. Use that pause button if you need it. Okay, let's break it down. 364,874,229. Well done if you got that. Question number four. How do we say this decimal number? Well, we say each number individually, so it's 1.75. Okay, last question. How do we say this date? It should be the 12th of June 1550. Extra points if you managed to say 12th. just went for 12th. Remember the stress pattern 1550. 1550. Okay, lovely students. If you've got to the end of this class with me here, well done. really hope it's been useful for you. I've packed all of the information that love teaching my students all about numbers into one lesson and I've added even more in the study guide, so don't forget to download that. really hope you feel much more confident reading numbers in English. If you're still watching, in the comment section, want to know if you know any really interesting numbers. Let me know what they are and why they are interesting to you in the comments below. I'll be looking out for them. If you've enjoyed this lesson, I'm sure you will love my Beautiful British English programs. They are 12-week programs. We have the B1, the B2, and the C1. For more information, visit englishwithlucy.com. will see you soon for another lesson. Mwah.