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 am 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. I promise you, after today's lesson, you will feel so

much more confident. I've also created a 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,

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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 a good question

because there are various ways we can say this number. We can use the word 'zero',

or we can say 'nought'. Now, when we say numbers one at a time, like when you need

to give your phone number or bank account number, we normally say 'o' as in

the letter 'O'. For example, my bank account number is—01765…—

just kidding! Okay, let's practice with a couple of my exes' phone numbers, I'm

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'

362 'double' 4. Now, notice how my intonation goes up as I say the first

three numbers or digits, and then falls as I read the last three. This signals to

the listener that the number has finished: 'double' 362 'double' 4.

Okay, let's move on to

temperature. When we're talking about temperature, we use 'zero', not 'nought'.

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 nil', or 'They beat Man United by

1 goal to nil'. Americans are more likely to say—'one - zero' or 'one - 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, 40, 50, 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, I say we usually stress the last syllable because

the stress can move or shift if we place a stressed noun after the number. Listen

and see if you can hear the difference!

'She's sevenTEEN.' 'She's got seventeen 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 a doubt, read out

each number to clarify. Did you say 'SEVenty'? No! 'SevenTEEN'. ONE SEVen!

Thir-TEEN, THIR-ty, thir-TEEN, THIR-ty

four-TEEN, FOR-ty and so on. Okay,

it's time to move on to some bigger numbers. Take a 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 a

100, 'a hundred'. We can say 'one hundred', but we often just

say 'a', 'a hundred'. Now, be careful, we don't

usually add an 's' in the plural so we just say

'one hundred', 'two hundred',  'three hundred' and so on. 

You will hear it pluralized

in the phrase—'hundreds and

hundreds', or 'hundreds and thousands', and we can also add 's' if we don't say a

number or quantity before it. For example—'Hundreds of thousands visit the

cathedral every year', or 'I received hundreds of emails while I was on

holiday'. Okay, the next number is 1,000, 'a thousand', and the same rules

apply here. Question—have you ever seen this written. So, 'K' 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 I said 

'tweny' not 'twenty'? It's  very common to elide the

't' sound, especially when speaking fast. Okay, next we have 'ten thousand'

and 'a hundred thousand'. Now, remember, we don't say '10 thousands' or

'a hundred thousands'. 'A million', 'a billion', 

notice the 'j' 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 hundred, thousand, and million and numbers

below a hundred—that's 1 to 99. Listen carefully

cause this is going to be really helpful for you: this number 'one hundred and eleven',

this—'one thousand and twelve'.

This one, which honestly scares me as

well—'one million nine hundred and and eighty-four thousand and ninety-nine'.

We don't need to add 'and' when the

number ends in double zero. For example—this one—'one thousand one hundred',

not 'one thousand and one hundred', or this

one—'seventeen thousand three hundred'.

Note that in American English and other dialects, it's also common to count

in hundreds rather than thousands. So, in British English, we would say—'two thousand

five hundred', in American English, sometimes they would say

'twenty-five hundred'. Whichever you choose 

to use, you'll be understood  either way. I just think

it's important you're aware, Right, let's put all of this knowledge to the test

and take a look at some big numbers. And don't worry, we'll build up gradually. Now,

just to add a little more fun all of these numbers have a 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

it to help. It should be

'one thousand three hundred and thirty-one'.

Notice how I pause slightly after the word 'thousand'. We don't usually say

'and'; just use /ən/ or even /n/. Okay, let's try another how do we say this big number?

This time we have 'ten thousand nine hundred and eighty-nine'.

Okay, let's make these

numbers even bigger—what about this one? How many thousands do we have?

'One hundred and eleven'. So, that's 'one hundred and eleven thousand'.

Moving up to 'millions' now—how do

you say this number? Let's divide the number up. We have—'three million

six hundred and twenty-eight thousand'.

Remember, we don't need to add 'and' here as the number ends in double zero.

Okay, this one is a really big one! Take a deep breath and have a think. We

have—'one billion five hundred and three million forty-seven thousand'.

Okay, great work! Don't worry, I

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 is on the 10th of June'. Let's take

a look at how we form ordinal numbers. We'll begin with the cardinal numbers

here. Most ordinal numbers end in the

letters 'th', pronounced with the /θ/ 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 'h' to eight, and don't forget to remove the

'e' from 9 before adding 'th'. Now, the ordinal numbers for 5 and 12 are

similar, but we need to change the voiced /v/ sound, the 'v', to the unvoiced 'f' sound,

the 'f', and then add the 'th', /θ/ —this makes the words easier to pronounce. So,

5 becomes 'fifth', and 12 becomes 'twelfth'. Now, that's still very hard to pronounce, in

my opinion. Lots of English speakers —and I am one of these speakers—cut it down

to 'fith' and 'twelth' in spoken English. We 

remove the 'f', 'fifth',  'twelfth'. Go ahead and do

that if it's easier for you! In fast speech, 'fith' and 'twelth is what a lot of

people say. Notice the vowel change with 'five' to 'fifth'; the diphthong /aɪ/ in

'five' becomes the short vowel /ɪ/ in 'fifth', 'five', 'fith' or 'fifth'. Okay, we keep this

pattern for the higher ordinal numbers to 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, and so on. The

only irregular ones left in our table are 1, 2 and 3, 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. I must say, I find it so confusing; I wish we could agree because

once I had a catastrophe when booking an American airline ticket. I 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 'nineteen', 'eighteen'—'the 6th of February 1918'.

What about this one? Well, the fourth month is 

April, so we have the '15th  of April nineteen twelve'.

Notice how there's a slight pause before I say the year. What about this one? Here

we have the '20th', 'twentieth', although we often don't pronounce the

second 't' sound we might say 'twenieth'—'The twentieth of July nineteen sixty nine'.

Let's try one more—here 'the 11th month is November'—so we read this date

as 'the 4th of November

two thousand and eight'.  This is where it gets a bit 

confusing for the years 2001 to 2009 we

don't divide we don't say— 'twenty o one' or 'twenty o two'.

Instead, we just read the

full number—'two thousand and one',

'two thousand and two'. Once you get to this year,

you can do either, 'two thousand and ten' or just 'twenty ten'. Okay, let's take a look at fractions

next—here is a pie, maybe it's a cake, or actually I'm going to

say it's a pizza—here is a

pizza—it's a whole pizza if we divide it in two, we get two halves. 'I'll have

half a pizza, please.' Be careful with the silent 'l' in 'half'—'haf'. We don't say 'half',

'haf'. If we divide the pizza into three, then we get 'thirds', 'thirds'. Notice how we

use the ordinal number here—'a third of a pizza'—and we also need to add the word

/ˈɒv/ or /əv/ in the weak form before a noun. We need to do this with all fractions

except 'half', where 'of' is optional. As I said, this is usually pronounced in the

weak form /əv/—'a third /əv/ a pizza'. Now, maybe you're really hungry and you want

'two-thirds of the pizza', that would be written like this: '2 over 3'. Not so hungry?

Let's just have 'a quarter of a pizza', 'a quarter'. We can also use the ordinal

number to describe this fraction—'I ate a quarter of a pizza', 'I ate a 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 'two-fiths'. Yes, technically it

should be 'two-fifths', but 'two-fiths' is so much easier to say. We have 'five-sixths'.

Now, that's so hard to say I prefer to go for 'five- /sɪkθs/'

/sɪkθs/. We have 'four-sevenths', and

'nine-tenths'. Okay, what about

these? Easy, we just have to add 'and' after the first number—'nine

and three-quarters', 'four and seven-eighths'. Okay, what about this fraction,

though—do we really have to say 'two hundred and forty-three, seven hundred

and twenty eights'. No, thankfully we can just say 

'over'—'two hundred and  forty-three over seven hundred

and twenty-eight'.

I also have more good news: decimals like this are even easier to read. We

simply name each digit individually—'three point

one four one',

'one point six one eight'. You can use 'nought' or 'zero' for decimals less than one.

For example—'nought point nought seven', or 'zero point zero seven'.

We can also drop the first 'nought' or 'zero',

and just say—'point zero seven'. I 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, I think it's time for a 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 a little while. Uh, 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 a little longer. Question number 1—how do

we say this phone

number? So, we say each number individually and group in twos or threes

so we can say—'nine one six eight three four', or

'nine one - six eight - three four'. 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 a noun. For example—'I read

about three-quarters of the book'. Okay, number 3—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—'three hundred and sixty-four million, eight

hundred and seventy-four thousand, two hundred and twenty-nine'.

Well done, if you got that question!

Number 4—how do we say this decimal

number? Well, we say each number individually so it's—'one point seven five'.

Okay, last question how do we say

this date? It should be—'the twelfth of June, fifteen fifty'. Extra points if you managed to say

'twelfth', I just went for 'twelth'. Remember the stress pattern—'fifTEEN', 'FIFty',

'fifTEEN', 'FIFty'. Okay, lovely students,

if you've got to the end of this class with me here—well

done! I really hope it's been useful

for you. I've packed all of the information that I 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. I really hope you feel much more

confident reading numbers in English. If you're still watching, in the comment

section, I 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 Programmes. They are 12-week programmes;

we have the B1, the B2 and the C1. For more information, visit englishwithlucy.com.

I will see you soon for another lesson!

Muah!