How to Say BIG NUMBERS in English

Hi.

I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.

Four thousand two hundred, forty-two hundred, four grand?

What?

Let's talk about it.

There are a lot of situations when you need to use big numbers or when you need to understand

when other people use big numbers.

By big numbers I mean any number over 100.

When you're talking about hotel rooms, money, phone numbers, counting items, if this is

a big number, there are different ways that we can talk about those numbers.

So I want to make sure you can understand them clearly and accurately and use them yourself.

For all of these big numbers that we're about to talk about, they can be a little bit tricky

sometimes to hear the first time.

So native speakers also will often ask for clarification.

So if you don't understand a number, it's okay to say each individual number like three,

two, five, seven, nine.

That's totally fine.

Native speakers will sometimes do that for clarification if they haven't heard accurately.

But I want you to be able to hear accurately the first time, so let's start by talking

about our first set of numbers.

How can we say this number?

One hundred and twelve or one hundred twelve?

Both are okay.

You can add and or you can take out and, one hundred twelve, one hundred and twelve, or

you might say a hundred twelve.

A hundred twelve.

For things specifically like hotel rooms, you might also hear one twelve.

Do you see how this splits the number?

One twelve.

There are a lot of other ways that we can say big numbers, so let's go on to our next

section.

Two hundred and five or two hundred five?

This is the simplest way to say this number.

For all of these numbers, I'll be starting out with the simple option.

You can use the simple option in almost any situation to talk about money, hotel rooms,

phone numbers, counting items, but there are also some specified, specific ways that we

use big numbers in different situations.

Maybe you're not going to feel comfortable using those right away, but when other people

say them, I want you to be able to understand what they mean.

What about this, two-O-five?

Here you're just saying each individual number two, O, five.

Instead of saying zero, we often say O. And we use this in specific situations.

Your hotel attended to might say, "Go to room two-O-five," or you might use it for a model

number on an electronic item, model two-O-five.

We not use this though for counting.

You wouldn't say there are two-O-five books on the shelf.

Instead, we'd use that simple way, there are two hundred five or two hundred and five books

on the shelf.

So do you see how that second kind of specific way is used in different situations, but it's

not used for counting?

There's a lot to digest in this lesson today that we're going to be talking about, a lot

of specific situations for different numbers.

My goal, first of all, if this is the first time you've ever heard these types of things,

is for you to just simply open your mind to all of these new ways to say numbers.

Feel free to go back and review this lesson, and you can also just understand them before

you use them yourself.

All right, let's go to the next one, two hundred ten, two hundred and ten.

Like I mentioned, these simple ways of saying big numbers you can use in any situation.

I'm in room two hundred ten.

I have the model number two hundred ten.

In the year two hundred ten.

No problem.

We can use this.

But you will also hear people say two-ten, separating these two numbers, two-ten.

Your hotel room is number two-ten.

You might say that as part of your phone number, two-ten, five, eight, nine, three, twenty-two.

Okay, great.

You're using that as part of a phone number.

This concept works for pretty much any number under 1,000.

You could say one fifteen, seven fifty, nine eighty-nine.

Do you see how we're separating those numbers under 1,000?

What happens when we get to above 1,000?

You can use it in a simple way, one thousand seven hundred.

You can you use this in almost any situation, one thousand seven hundred, or you could say

seventeen hundred.

What's happening here?

We're separating this again, but instead of using the word thousand, we're using the word

hundred and seventeen, seventeen hundred.

This is extremely common in almost every situation.

The year seven hundred.

I paid seventeen hundred dollars for the service.

Seventeen hundred.

This is really commonly used for eleven hundred to nineteen hundred.

Above that, we're not really going to use this hundred concept.

We don't really say twenty-two hundred.

It's not really used as much.

So for the teens, like 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 hundred, you can use this for

the thousands.

There is one word that we use specifically for money.

So you could say one thousand seven hundred dollars, you could say seventeen hundred dollars,

or the specific expression grand.

Grand means 1,000.

So if you said one grand, it means $1,000 specifically for money, or you could say 20

grand.

That's $20,000.

You could say 400 grand and that's $400,000.

So you will definitely hear this expression, grand, used only for money, and you can just

substitute the word grant for 1,000.

And in your mind, that will help you to figure out how much money they're talking about.

What about this number?

You could say simply one thousand seven hundred and one or one thousand seven hundred one

and leaving out the word and, or you could say seventeen-O-one.

Here we're separating the numbers, seventeen-O-one.

You're saying those final ones kind of by themselves, O-one.

This is common for hotel rooms, versions on an electronic product, years, in the year

seventeen-O-one, or you might see this for phone numbers.

This is common in those situations, or we could say seventeen hundred and one.

Seventeen hundred and one.

This is used when we're talking about items.

There were seventeen hundred and one books on the shelf.

Seventeen hundred and one.

What about this number, 1,785?

You could use this in a lot of situations, or specifically you could say seventeen eighty-five.

Here we're separating this.

It's common for hotel rooms, you're staying in room seventeen eighty-five, or we could

use this for dates, in the year seventeen eighty-five.

You could use it for versions of a product or for phone numbers, or you could say seventeen

hundred eighty-five.

This is commonly used for money.

How much does that cost?

Well, seventeen hundred eighty-five dollars.

Seventeen hundred eighty-five dollars.

What about this number?

Now that we're not in the teens like 1785, those types of numbers, now that we're above

that, it gets a little bit simpler.

How can we say this number?

Simply three thousand.

Three thousand.

Can you say thirty hundred?

No.

No.

You cannot say thirty hundred.

You could only say this, like I mentioned before, below 19.

So nineteen hundred ninety-nine is the last number that we use with hundred, nineteen

hundred ninety-nine.

But now that we're above that, 3,000 it's just three thousand.

Simple.

What about this, three thousand and one or three thousand one?

Or we can separate it and say thirty-O-one.

This is specifically used for hotel rooms, versions of products, years, in the year thirty-O-one,

will humans be around?

We'll see.

Talk about years, phone numbers, these really specific situations.

But note that we do not use this for money.

You would not say, "I spent thirty-O-one dollars yesterday."

We would not use that.

Instead, you just use the simple version, three thousand one dollars.

Three thousand one.

What about this number, three thousand three hundred and thirty?

Or could cut out and say three thousand three hundred thirty.

We can use this in almost any situation, money, hotel rooms, dates.

Use it for all of that, or we could separate it and say thirty-three thirty.

In the year thirty-three thirty.

You could use it for hotel rooms, phone numbers, versions of products, thirty-three thirty.

But remember, we don't use this one for money.

We only use that first one for money when we're talking about numbers bigger than 1,999.

So we can say, "I spent three thousand three hundred thirty dollars on this product."

What about numbers bigger than just four digits?

I have some good news, numbers bigger than four digits just have one way that we can

say them.

It's very simple, but let's practice it together because there's going to be a test at the

end of this lesson.

40,000.

This is the only way to say this number, forty thousand.

Unless we're talking about money, remember you can say 40 grand.

That's going to be the exception to all of these, but we're going to just focus on that

simple one, forty thousand.

What if we want to grow that number a little bit?

You could say forty-two thousand three hundred seventy-eight, one hundred thousand.

Simple, clear, one hundred thousand, or one hundred twelve thousand four hundred seventy-three,

two million one hundred ninety thousand three hundred eighty-two.

What about the population of the earth?

This is an extremely large number.

Perfect for today's lesson.

Well, at the moment, the population of planet earth is seven billion, seven hundred eighty-six

million, two hundred thirty-eight thousand, and sixty-two.

All right, we just talked about a lot of big numbers, a lot of different ways that we can

talk about these big numbers.

As you can see, there are a lot of options.

So it's time to take a little test to review what you've learned.

Imagine that you're back in elementary school and you have a number and you need to write

out how to spell that number.

But this time, thankfully, you're not going to have to take your test paper home to your

mom, so less stress.

I'm going to show you a sentence with a number in it, and then I'm going to show you two

options.

I want you to choose which option is going to be best for spelling out and saying that

number.

Sentence number one, I made cookies.

Should you say I made one hundred thirty-two cookies, or should you say I made thirteen

two cookies?

Which one's the most natural in this situation?

We're talking about items, cookies.

We're not talking about money.

We're not talking about hotel rooms.

This is just an item.

I'll give you three seconds.

Three, two, one.

I made one hundred thirty-two cookies.

We're simply saying the simple answer here, one hundred thirty-two cookies.

We're not going to split 13-2 for counting items in this situation.

Sentence number two, your hotel room is?

What's a natural way to say this number.

Your hotel room is 1,200 or your hotel room is 1200.

Think about that for a moment.

Hotel rooms often use specific situations here, specific types of numbers.

I'll give you three seconds.

Three, two, one.

Your hotel room is twelve hundred.

Wonderful.

Number three, he was born in?

What's the best way to say this date?

He was born in one thousand eight hundred fifty-four, or he was born in eighteen fifty-four?

Should you say this number in the simple way, or should you split this?

Three, two, one.

He was born in eighteen fifty-four.

For dates, it's really common to split it into two sections, eighteen fifty-four.

Number four, she spent on her vacation.

She spent five thousand three dollars on her vacation, or she spent fifty-O-three dollars

on her vacation.

Which one feels the most correct to you?

Even if you don't remember the specific date, which one feels correct?

Follow your heart.

Three, two, one.

She spent five thousand three dollars on her vacation.

We do not split numbers, like fifty-O-three dollars, when we're talking about ones that

are big numbers.

This can be confusing because at least for dollars, we have dollars and cents.

So if you said, "She spent fifty-O-three," this kind of feels like she spent fifty dollars

and three cents.

But instead, she spent five thousand dollars and three, five thousand and three dollars.

So this is quite different.

Instead, for money, we're going to just use that simple version and say, "She spent five

thousand three dollars on her vacation."

Number five, my phone number is?

How can we say this phone number?

My phone number is five hundred seventy-four sixty-two, or my phone number is five hundred

seven thousand four hundred sixty-two?

Which one's the most natural?

Three, two, one.

The answer is, my phone number is five hundred seventy-four sixty-two.

We often separate numbers and phone numbers.

It just kind of helps us to visualize the number easier.

So we're going to separate that into small segments, seventy-four, sixty-two.

There are about people in my city.

How can we say this number correctly?

We're talking about a population of people.

We're just counting these items or these people.

Should you say ninety-two thousand four hundred fifty-two, or should you say ninety-two million

four hundred fifty-two?

Which one is the most correct?

How many commas do you see here?

There's only one which means it needs to be, there are ninety-two thousand four hundred

fifty-two people in my city.

The first comment is a thousand.

The second comma is a million.

The third one is billion, and there are not 92 billion people in my city.

Great work with this lesson.

I know there was a lot of information today, but numbers are essential, especially big

numbers.

You want to make sure you hear them accurately, and I want to make sure you can use them as

well.

So I have a challenge for you.

In the comments, can you write this number out correctly?

There are a couple different ways to write it correctly, so test yourself, practice a

little bit, read some of the other comments, and see some of the other ways that you can

say this number correctly.

Well, thank you so much for learning English with me.

Good luck saying big numbers in English, and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson

here on my YouTube channel.

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