British Money Explained - Great British Pound Sterling

That'll be one pound 20 please.

Oh yes uh um there you go.

Oh that's 30p

Whenever I travel to a different country,  one of the things I find the most frustrating  

is that I don’t understand how the money works.  I end up turning coins over, peering at them and  

eventually asking the shop assistant for help, and  I know lots of other tourists do the same. In the  

future, I’m going to make sure that I research the  currency before I arrive in another country and  

today’s tutorial is to help you do just that.  Before we jump in I want to thank our sponsor  

Lingoda, who are giving their students a chance  to study for free but more about that later. 

First of all, we’re going to discuss some money  vocabulary that will be useful when buying things  

in England, and then I’m going to  show you the British coins and notes  

and talk through the value of each one. Bargain. 
A ‘bargain’ is something which  

is bought for less money than you would  expect. It’s good value for money.
“This  

t-shirt was a bargain! It was only a fiver.” Currency
. Currency’ is the word we use  

to describe a system of money in  general use in a particular country.  


“Britain’s national currency is the pound  sterling. What is your country’s currency?” 

Card
. ‘Card’ is the word we use to describe  paying with one of these (show card). It’s  

an umbrella term which includes debit cards (when  you are paying with money from your bank account)  

and credit cards, which is when you pay with the  bank’s money. 
“I’d like to pay by card please.” 

Next, we have cash. 
‘Cash’ is the  word we use to describe physical  

money. 
“I’m sorry, our card machine is broken  so we can only take cash at the moment.” 

Coin
. A ‘coin’ is a metal disc of money.  The plural of ‘coin’ is ‘coins’.
“I need  

a coin to scratch my scratch card.”  “I like to give the grandkids a few  

coins for their piggy bank when I see them.” Notes.
 A ‘note’ is the paper, or nowadays,  

plastic sheet of money. 
“I only have  a £20 note. Do you have enough change?”

That brings me on to 
‘Change’. Change is the  noun we use to describe the money returned

after paying something with  more money than it costs.


“It costs £6 so if I pay with a £10 note,  I’ll get £4 change.”
The word ‘change’ can  

also be used to refer to any kind of money in coin  form. 
“I’m 10p short. Do you have any change?” 


Next ‘Contactless’. Contactless is the word we  use to describe paying with a card by tapping it,  

rather than by putting in the machine. 
“Not  all stores can take contactless payments.” 

Next we have the word cheap. 
If something is ‘cheap’ that  means it doesn’t cost much money. Of course,  

‘cheap’ is a subjective word, meaning it really  depends on the context. £350 is cheap for a car,  

but not for a bottle of water. 
“These  were so cheap! So I bought 8 of them.” 

Opposite to that we have the word expensive
. If something is ‘expensive’,  that means it costs a lot of money.  

Again, ‘expensive’ is a subjective  word, so it depends on the context.  


“Buying snacks and drinks from  the cinema is so expensive.”

So now let’s talk about the different coins and  notes we use in the UK and the value of each one.

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Our notes are slowly being changed over from an  old paper note to a new plastic or ‘polymer’ note.  

At the time of filming, the £5, £10, and £20  notes have all been replaced by the new design  

but the £50 note will be changing in 2021. Each  note has a photograph of the Queen on the front,  

and a transparent window to prevent  fraudulent, or fake, notes being used. 

The largest note we have is the £50 note. The  £50 note is red in colour and the new note will  

display a photo of Alan Turing, a British man who  devised code-breaking machines during the Second  

World War and is widely recognised as being one  of the pioneers of computers. If you would like  

to learn more about Alan Turing, you can watch  the film ‘The Imitation Game’ starring Benedict  

Cumberbatch. Watching films and television  series in English is a great way to practice  

and improve your English listening. The £20 note is purple in colour. It  

has a photo of the Queen on one side and  British artist JMW Turner on the other. 

The £10 note is orange and features a portrait  of the famous British author, Jane Austen. 

Lastly, the £5 note is blue and features  a picture of Sir Winston Churchill,  

who was the British Prime Minister in the 1940s  and 1950s. The £5 note is our lowest value note. 

Now, let’s move on to the coins. If you look  carefully at any British coin, you can see the  

year it was made written on the edge. The largest value coin is £2. They are  

circular; gold around the edge and  silver in the middle. If you’re looking  

at your coins in a rush, you can look at the edge  of the coin and see that it says ‘two pounds’. 

The next coin is the £1 coin which is a  gold circular disc. £1 is worth 100 pence. 

Now let’s look at the 50 pence coin.  It has 7 sides and is silver in colour.  

It’s the biggest coin we have and one  of the most easily recognised. While  

the official term is ’50 pence’, you might  hear English speakers saying ‘50p’ for short. 

Getting smaller in value, here is the 20 pence  coin. It’s similar in shape to the 50p, it has 7  

sides and is silver but it is much smaller. Next, we have the 10 pence coin, or  

10p. It is a large, silver, circular disc. The 5p coin is the smallest in size but not in  

value. It’s silver and circular and the number  5 can be seen quite largely on one side, which  

could give you a big clue if  you needed to find 5p quickly. 

Next we have the bronze coins,  which are the lowest in value.  

The two pence coin is a fairly large bronze disc. 

And lastly, the smallest value of coin is the 1  pence coin, sometimes called ‘1p’ or ‘a penny’.  

It’s bronze, round and slightly  larger in size than the 5p coin. 

So there we have a guide to British Money!  There is also ‘Scottish Sterling’, which  

looks a little bit different but is still legal  currency in England, but if you are exchanging  

currency to take away on holiday, you will most  likely receive the notes I’ve shown you today.

Don't forget about that Llingoda  sprint which is starting soon  

all the details are in the description box  below, and if you have a spare few minutes  

then why not check out another  video? Until next time take care.