Describing Imprecise Numbers, Quantities, Amounts, and Measurements in English 🧮🔢📊

There are two silos behind me.

This silo is 20 meters tall, give or take.

This silo is 30 meters tall, give or take.

You'll notice I'm using the English phrase give

or take because I'm giving you an imprecise

measurement of the height of the silo.

In English, when we are imprecise, when we

are talking about numbers or temperature or things

we can measure, we sometimes use phrases so

people know we are saying approximately.

This silo might be a little taller or a little shorter

than that, but I think it's 20 meters, give or take.

It's approximately 20 meters.

So in this English lesson, I will teach you 10 phrases,

10 phrases that you can use when you are talking about

things you can measure or count in an imprecise way.

So you might have noticed that

I'm wearing a jacket today.

You might have noticed that it's not

summer anymore here, it's definitely fall.

If you were to ask me what the

temperature is, I might say something like this.

I think it's just over 10 degrees Celsius.

Or I might say, oh, I think it's just under

10 degrees Celsius, because I don't know the exact temperature,

but I can make a pretty good guess.

When I'm wearing a jacket and I'm

comfortable, it's usually just over 10 degrees

Celsius or just under 10 degrees Celsius.

So again, when we're talking about things like the

weather, the temperature, when we don't know the exact

temperature, you can use phrases like just over or

just under to give your best guess.

So sometimes I'm home with the kids

and Jen's off doing some errands.

And sometimes the kids might say,

when will mom be home?

And I will say, in about 10

minutes or in about an hour.

When you use the word about in front of a

number, you are saying that it is a good guess.

You're saying that it is an approximate number.

I don't know exactly when Jen's going to be

home, but I have a pretty good idea.

Usually I know what errands she's doing

and how long that will take.

So I'll answer with the word about.

She'll be home in about 10 minutes.

She'll be home in about an hour.

So last weekend I got to go

to Toronto to a YouTube event.

I'll put a picture or two here for you to see.

And when I got home, Jen

asked how many people were there?

And I said, I think there

were close to 200 people there.

So when you go to an event where there's lots

of people, you don't necessarily count all the people.

That would be silly.

But when you look around, you kind of get a

good idea as to how many people were there.

And I think from talking to people and

knowing how many people were invited, I think

there were close to 200 people.

Now, let's say someone told me they invited 200

people and there was obviously more than that.

I would probably say, oh, I think

there were more than 200 people there.

So when you say close to 200, it means you're

guessing that there were a little bit less than that.

If you say there were more than 200, you're

thinking there was probably a few more than that.

So when you're talking in imprecise ways about the

amount of people at an event, you can say

close to or you can say more than.

While I was at the YouTube event, Jen and one

of my kids went to the Royal Agricultural Winter Fair.

And while they were there, they saw a dog show.

And a question you could ask about a dog

show is how many dogs were in the show.

Now, Jen didn't count all of them, but she could respond

by saying there were 10 or so dogs in the show,

or there were 10 or more dogs in the show.

So again, this is an imprecise way

to give a number to someone.

Jen didn't know exactly how many dogs were in the show, but

she could answer by saying, oh, there were 10 or so dogs,

or there were 10 or more dogs in the dog show.

Another imprecise way of counting things is

to say more than you can count.

There are seagulls flying around in the air behind me.

I'm not sure if you can see them all,

but if you were to ask how many, I

would probably say there's more than I can count.

If I was to take a good guess,

I would say probably close to 100.

But I would probably say, no, there

was just more than I could count.

You might be wondering why there's seagulls here

when we don't live close to the sea.

Well, seagulls love it when farmers work up soil.

They come and they look for mice and worms to eat.

But right now, there's certainly more

seagulls than I can count.

When talking about imprecise numbers, you'll probably hear the

word approximately and the word around a lot.

When I go to the grocery store, there's

approximately 50 cars in the parking lot.

There's approximately 50 people in the store.

There's around 50 cars in the parking lot

and there's around 50 people in the store.

Canadians don't carpool very well, I guess.

But anyways, when you are giving an imprecise

number, that is probably the most common way.

If I go shopping at a busy time,

there's approximately 100 cars in the parking lot.

There's around 100 people in the store.

When I go really early in the morning,

there's approximately five cars in the parking lot

and there's around five people in the store.

That's the best time to go shopping.

So two very common words to use when

giving an imprecise number, approximately, and around.

So Jen and I went to watch

a few baseball games this summer.

We went to watch the Toronto Blue Jays, and every

time we went, the stadium was pretty much full.

There were roughly 40,000 people there.

The word roughly means that you

are giving an approximate number.

I didn't count all the people in the stadium and

I don't remember exactly how many people they said were

there when they put it on the big display.

So if I was to describe it to someone, I

would say, oh, there were roughly 40,000 people here.

So again, roughly a great word to

use when you're giving an imprecise number.

When I go to Blue Jays

games, there's roughly 40,000 people there.

I think the stadium seats just under 40,000, but that

would still be a good way to describe it.

Roughly 40,000 people.

So you probably have noticed that there are a lot

of leaves on the ground around me and you might

be wondering how many leaves are on the ground. And I.

I don't really know.

I would probably say somewhere around 3,000.

That's a really imprecise guess, but that is the

phrase I would use somewhere around, hey, Bob, how

many leaves are on the ground behind you? I don't know.

Somewhere around 3,000, maybe somewhere around 4,000.

I don't actually know.

And then you might be wondering, hey, Bob, how

many leaves are still up in that tree?

And I would say, I don't know,

somewhere around 2000, somewhere around 5000.

I actually don't know.

This is probably the most imprecise I

have been during this entire lesson.

But anyways, thank you so much for

watching this lesson on how to describe

imprecise numbers, quantities, measurements and amounts.

I hope you were able to learn some new English

phrases that you can use in your next English conversation.

Thank you so much for watching.

Don't forget to leave a comment and have a great week.

Bye.