The following table shows the names of numbers. These numbers are sometimes called cardinal numbers. You can see from the numbers in this table how to form all other numbers.

Cardinal Numbers

0    zero, oh, nought, nil, love, nothing 1    one 2    two 3    three 4    four 5    five 6    six 7    seven 8    eight 9    nine 10   ten 11   eleven 12   twelve 13   thirteen 14   fourteen 15   fifteen 16   sixteen 17   seventeen 18   eighteen 19   nineteen 20   twenty 21   twenty-one 22   twenty-two 23   twenty-three 24   twenty-four 25   twenty-five

26   twenty-six 27   twenty-seven 28   twenty-eight 29   twenty-nine 30   thirty 40   forty  (no "u") 50   fifty 60   sixty 70   seventy 80   eighty 90   ninety 100   a/one hundred 101   a hundred and one 110   a hundred and ten 120   a hundred and twenty 200   two hundred 1,000   a/one thousand 1,001   a thousand and one 1,010   a thousand and ten 2,000   two thousand 10,000   ten thousand 11,000   eleven thousand 100,000   a/one hundred thousand 1,000,000   a/one million 2,000,000   two million 1,000,000,000   a/one billion

Note: In the past British speakers used "billion" to mean a million million. However, nowdays they usually use it to mean a thousand million (a milliard), like American speakers. Expressing Numbers in English

:: If a number is in the range 21 to 99, and the second digit is not zero, we should write the number as two words separated by a hyphen:

25   twenty-five 57   fifty-seven 89   eighty-nine :: Numbers over 100 are generally written in figures. However if you want to say them aloud or want to write them in words rather than figures you put 'and' in front of the number expressed by the last two figures. For example:

203      two hundred and three             (AmE: two hundred three)

622      six hundred and twenty-two     (AmE: six hundred twenty-two) :: Numbers between 1000 and 1,000,000 is usually said or written in words as:

1,803    one thousand, eight hundred and three            (AmE: one thousand, eight hundred three)

1,963    one thousand, nine hundred and sixty-three     (AmE: one thousand, nine hundred sixty-three)

2,840    two thousand, eight hundred and forty            (AmE: two thousand, eight hundred forty) Four-figure numbers ending in 00 can also be said or written as a number of hundreds. For example, 1800 can be said or written as "eighteen hundred" :: If the number 1963 is being used to identify something, it is said as "one nine six three". We always say each figure separately like this with telephone numbers. If a telephone number contains a double number, we use the word "double":

561 6603    five six one [pause] double six 'oh' three  (AmE: five six one [pause] six six 'oh' three)

:: Saying years. We normally say a year in two parts. In the case of years ending in "00", we say the second part in "hundred":

1058   ten fifty-eight

1706   seventeen hundred and six (or 'seventeen oh six')

1865   eighteen sixty-five

1900   nineteen hundred There are two ways of saying years ending in "01" to "09" before 2000. For example: "1901" can be said as "nineteen oh one" or "nineteen hundred and one". The year 2000 is read "two thousand", 2006 "two thousand and six" (AmE: two thousand six). Post-2010 dates are often said as normal (2010 would be "twenty ten"). :: Flight numbers. We pronounce a flight number in two parts or digit-by-digit. For example:

110      one ten (or 'one one oh') 1248    twelve forty-eight

2503    twenty-five oh three 3050    three oh five oh (or 'three zero five zero', 'thirty fifty') :: Expressing millions.

1,412,605        one million four hundred (and) twelve thousand six hundred (and) five

2,760,300        two million seven hundred (and) sixty thousand three hundred Remember: The British use 'and' before tens and ones but the Americans usually leave the 'and' out.

1. Difficulties in spelling

four BUT forty, fortieth five BUT fifteen, fifty, fifth eight BUT eighth nine BUT ninth twelve BUT twelfth thirty BUT thirtieth

There is a hyphen between tens and digits, e.g. twenty-two, one hundred and eighty-seven

2. General remarks about cardinal numbers

a) 1,000,000,000 (Polish ‘miliard’) is a thousand million in British English, and a billion in American English. The American way of reading the number 1,000,000,000 is getting more and more common.

b) A comma is used instead of spaces or dots to separate the thousands. Spaces are possible in British English only.

c) The words ‘hundred’, ‘thousand’, ‘million’, ‘dozen’ are not pluralized when they are given with a specific number or with such expressions as ‘a few’, ‘several’, ‘many’. They are pluralized if there is no number of them given (e.g. thousands of people).

d) In British English we say ‘and’ after the word ‘hundred’, e.g. 113 - one hundred and thirteen; 320,000 - three hundred and twenty thousand

e) ‘A’ before ‘hundred’, ‘thousand’, ‘million’ etc. is more popular than ‘one’ if these numbers stand alone, e.g. 100 - a hundred Otherwise ’one” is more popular, e.g. 1,140 - one thousand one hundred and forty

f) In bigger numbers, we put ‘and’ before the tens when the hundreds are missing, e.g. we have the year two thousand and five.

g) Round numbers between 1,100 and 1,900 are often read ‘fifteen hundred’, ‘eighteen hundred’ etc.

h) 12 is a dozen; 20 is a score; 60 is threescore; 144 is a gross

i) anything above 1 is already plural in English, e.g. 1.5 litres of water

j) centuries are given in Arabic numbers, e.g. we live in 21st century.

3. Fractions:

½ - a half 2 ½ - two and a half ¼ - a quarter ¾ - three quarters (three fourth) ⅛ - one eighth (an eighth) ⅞ - seven eighths

4. Decimals:

NB: in English a ‘point’, not a comma, is used in decimal fractions! We read the digits after the point separately.

0.5 - oh (OR: nought) point five 2.5 - two point five 0.75 - oh point seven five 15.735 - fifteen point seven three five

5. Ways of saying the number 0: - generally, the figure ‘0’ is usually called ‘nought’ in BrE, and ‘zero’ in AmE. - in a series of numbers (such as a credit card number or telephone number) you can pronounce 0 like the letter o; - in mathematics, science, and technical contexts say nought or zero (sometimes also ‘cipher’); - in temperatures say zero to refer to freezing point (0 Celsius or -32 Fahrenheit); - in sports for scores of 0 say nil (BrE), zero or nothing (AmE) (in tennis say love - originally from French l’oeuf - egg).

6. Ordinal numbers

a) The article ‘the’ normally precedes ordinal numbers, e.g. the seventh day of the week. b) to make the pronunciation easier, we put /ı / before the ‘th’ ending, e.g. 30th - /'θ tı θ/ c) We use the ordinal numbers, preceded by ‘the’, in titles of kings in spoken English, e.g. Elizabeth the Second

7. Saying the numbers of years:

1066 - ten sixty-six 1605 - sixteen oh five 1776 - seventeen seventy-six 1900 - nineteen hundred 2000 - (the year) two thousand 2001 - two thousand and one OR twenty oh one

We don’t say ‘year’ after the number, we may say ‘the year 2005’ but before the number.