Viv Quarry's upper-intermediate vocabulary practice (www.vivquarry.com)

 

Numbers, time, dates and prices.

 

Student's name _________________________      Date ___________________

 

Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers are usually preceded by the definite article (the) unless a possessive adjective is used.

The eighteenth floor                                                    Her eighteenth birthday.

For many language students the most difficult thing about ordinal numbers is the pronunciation. the 'th' sound at the end of most ordinal numbers does not exist in many Latin based languages. Don't forget that this sound must be pronounced with air escaping between your tongue and upper teeth! Apart from the first three ordinal numbers:

1st = the first                2nd = the second                     3rd = the third

103rd = the hundred and third

Most other ordinals are formed by adding 'th' to the cardinal number.

500th = the five hundredth

However, there are some difficult cases. 'V' changes to 'F' and the final 'E' is dropped from '5' and '12'.

5th = the fifth   

12th = the twelfth (in both cases the 'F' is silent and the numbers are pronounced /FIθ/ & /TWELθ/)

With multiples of ten the final 'Y' changes to 'IETH'.

30th = the thirtieth

Don't forget that the final 'E' is also dropped from the number 9.

9th = the ninth /NAINTH/

 

Cardinal numbers

Compound numbers should be written with a hyphen.

22 = twenty-two

The word stress for 'tens' is on the first syllable, and for 'teens' it is on the second syllable.

13 /θERTEEN/           30 /θERTEE/

Spoken English usually uses the indefinite article (a) with numbers between 100 and 199.

139 = a hundred and thirty-nine.

In more formal English, 'one' can be used.

139 = one hundred and thirty-nine.

Either 'a' or 'one' can also be used with 1000; 100,000 ; 1,000,000 ; 1 billion ; 1 trillion etc.

100,000 = a hundred thousand (informal) or one hundred thousand (formal).

Only 'one' can be used if a number above 99 follows thousand, million etc.

1,100 = one thousand, one hundred.

Or if '100' is preceded by other numbers.

10,100 = ten thousand, one hundred.

In British English, when saying cardinal numbers, 'and' comes after the word 'hundred'.

4,150 - four thousand, one hundred and fifty. (in US English this 'and' is sometimes dropped).

If a number between 1 and 99 follows thousand, million etc, 'and' is also used.

123,099 = a/one hundred and twenty-three thousand and ninety-nine.

5,001 = five thousand and one.

In informal English (both UK and US), it is possible to pronounce numbers between 1,099 and 1,901 which end in two zeros in the following way:

1,200 = twelve hundred feet                1,800 = eighteen hundred people

In formal English these numbers would be 'one thousand, two hundred' and 'one thousand eight hundred'.

Don't forget that there is no 'U' in the number 40! (forty).

Percentages are written like this:           26% = twenty-six per cent.

 

Brazilian students: Don't forget that in English a COMMA is used to separate billions, millions and thousands!

Decimals and lists of numbers

In decimal numbers (less than one), '0' is pronounced 'nought' /NORT/ in British English, and 'zero' /ZEEROW/ in USA English if it comes before the decimal point.

 0.3 = nought point three (UK) and zero point three (US).

If '0' appears to the right of the decimal point it is pronounced 'zero' in both Britain and the USA.

1.03 = one point zero three (UK&US).

After the decimal point, each number must be spoken individually.

7.3661 = seven point three, six, six, one.

When numbers appear in lists, for example bank account, room and flight numbers, '0' is pronounced like the letter 'O' /OW/.

'0' is also pronounced /OW/ in telephone numbers. When saying telephone numbers in English you can't use any number above '9'. However, if the same number is repeated you can use the word 'double' /DUBL/. 6641044 = double six, four, one, oh, double four. There is an exception to the 'no number above 9' rule with some prefixes eg. 0800 = oh, eight hundred.

In football scores '0' is 'nil' /NIL/, and in tennis it is 'love' /LUV/.

Brazilian students: don't forget that a COMMA is NOT used to separate decimals from whole numbers!

 

Fractions

Fractions combine both cardinal and ordinal numbers, with three exceptions (½,  ⅓ & ¼).

The indefinite article (a/an) is used when the upper number is 1.

½ = a half, ⅓ = a third, ¼ = a quarter, ⅛ = an eighth

In fractions starting with a number above 1, cardinal numbers combine with plural ordinal numbers (see exceptions above).

¾ = three quarters, ⅜ = three eighths.

When fractions combine with whole numbers, use 'and' between the two types of number.

16⅞ = sixteen and seven eighths.

 

Time

There are three conventions for telling the time in English. They depend on the level of formality.

1 - informal spoken English.

2 - Neutral (can be used in most situations)

3 - Formal (used for public transport and by the military)

Here are examples of the spoken forms of these three conventions:

*'in the morning', 'in the afternoon', 'in the evening' and 'at night' will be added if there is any possibility that the time of day may be misunderstood.

** Note that if the number of minutes is not a multiple of 5 then the word 'minutes' is added when saying the time.

*** The word 'hours' is usually added in military time, but not necessarily in other areas.

What comes before the time depends on the question: What's the time? It's... When did it happen? At....

Dates

The way the date is written and spoken is different:

 

 

Note that ordinal numbers are used for the day.

What comes before the date depends on the type of question asked:

What's the date today? It's the fifth of August two thousand and four.

When did it happen? On the thirtieth of March nineteen eighty.

 

Years

Look at these examples:

15BC = Fifteen before Christ                                                  1902 = Nineteen oh two

10AD = Ten after Christ (AD = Latin for 'Anno Domini')        1999 = Nineteen ninety-nine

1500 = Fifteen hundred                                                          2000 = (The year) two thousand

1900 = Nineteen hundred                                                       2002 = Two thousand and two

Ordinal numbers are also used for centuries:

1900 - 1999 = The twentieth century                                      2000 + = The twenty-first century.

 

Prices

This worksheet will focus on prices in England, Europe and the USA. Don't forget that the name of the currencies in other countries may be different in both spelling and pronunciation than it is pronounced by the native speakers of the country. When two counties use the same name for their currencies, it's common to put the adjective for the country before the less known country eg. Cypriot Pound, Australian Dollar. The abbreviations will also be different (CYP or CY£, AU$ or AUD). In informal English, people do not usually write 'GB' before a pound sign, or 'US' before a Dollar sign.

As with dates, prices are usually spoken differently than they are written. Look at these examples:

 

The UK. (if there's no pound sign on your computer, press CTRL+Shift+Alt+$)

 

 

* For pounds + less than ten pence, the words 'and --- pence' are added, but not pounds + more than 9p.

Eg. £10.09 = Ten pounds and nine pence        £10.10 = Ten pounds ten.

 

The European Union, The United States, Australian and Canada (for the USA, Australia and Canada, replace the Euro sign with a '$' sign and replace the word 'Euro/s' with 'Dollar/s')

 

 

In the USA, some coins have informal names:

1¢ = a penny               5¢= a nickel                 10¢ = a dime               25¢ = a quarter            50¢ = half dollar

 

Exchange rates

What's the exchange rate for the Dollar?

There are 2.58 Reals to the Dollar.

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