We use different words to describe numbers depending on how many digits (numbers) they contain. We can also refer to the number of digits for simple generalisations. For example, 10,000 is five digits, so we refer to it as in the tens of thousands, but we may also call it a five figure number.
Here are some of the ways we can describe numbers. Individual numbers will be called by their name, for instance 4 is four, 13,425 is thirteen thousand four hundred and 25. But they can also be grouped or generalised in a variety of ways. For instance 4 is also a single figure (or digit) number, and 13,425 is in the tens of thousands.
In this article, you’ll learn all the major number-naming conventions.
This table shows how we can describe some groups of numbers as they increase in size:
| Number |
Name |
|
13-19 |
teen |
|
10 |
ten |
|
100 |
hundred |
|
1000 |
thousand |
|
10,000 |
ten thousand |
|
100,000 |
hundred thousand |
|
1,000,000 |
million |
|
1,000,000,000 |
billion |
|
1,000,000,000,000 |
trillion |
In the past, there was a distinction between the American billion (1,000,000,000) and the British or European billion (1,000,000,000,000 – now the trillion), but in modern use the vast majority of the English speaking world has adopted the American version.
Saying a large number
We say large numbers by listing the numbers in order of size, biggest first. When reading a single number, all the number labels should be singular, for example 10,400 is ten thousand four hundred and not ten thousands four hundreds.
We describe three digit numbers in hundreds, then tens. Generally, in British English we usually connect large numbers with double or single digit figures with and, but in American English and is not used. Note that hundreds, thousands and millions are not connected to each other with and, though.
For example:
- 345 is three hundred and forty-five (three hundred forty five in American).
- 59,321 is fifty nine thousand, three hundred and twenty one. (not fifty nine thousand and three hundred…)
You can then describe large numbers with a series of different figures, grouping numbers in hundreds and tens, starting with the biggest number. So we describe hundreds/tens of millions, then thousands, then hundreds:
- 1,345,612 = one million, three hundred and forty five thousand, six hundred and twelve
- 153,200 = one hundred and fifty three thousand, two hundred
In the…
When we want to say where a number generally lies, in the above groups, we can say it is in the… For example, 14 is in the teens, 325 is in the hundreds. For tens and hundreds of larger numbers (thousands, millions), we say in the tens (or hundreds) of… So: hundreds of thousands and tens of millions.
Hundreds and thousands
Often it is easier to describe four figure numbers in hundreds instead of thousands. This is perfectly acceptable. For example, 1500 might be described as fifteen hundred, instead of one thousand five hundred (or one and a half thousand), because it is simpler to say.
Numbers as adjectives
All of these numbers can be referred to by the number of figures they contain, with plurals, for instance a number is in single figures (3), double figures (20) or quadruple figures (1,000). However, when we use the figure size of the number to describe a noun (such as a salary, price or to refer to a number itself) we simply use number + figure + noun. For example, a six-figure salary, a four-figure discount.
Saying Thousands in Units of Ten (For Years and More)
One exception to the patterns above that you are likely to hear is when English-speakers say a number in thousands as a pair of two-digit numbers, for example 1912 as nineteen twelve.
This is mostly used when giving the name of years, and in fact is the more common way to do this – when pronouncing a year as a number, we usually break it into two. It also applies to years in the hundreds. Here are some examples:
- 1066 – ten sixty six
- 1254 – twelve fifty four
- 831- eight thirty one
Note, however, for the first century of a millennium we often go back to normal number conventions:
- 2005 – two thousand and five
There are some other exceptions where we break thousands down this way, usually when the number isn’t necessarily referring to a quantity, for example if it’s an assigned number to name something. For example, screen resolutions (1080px, though referring to a number of pixels, can be said as ten eighty, as it is part of a naming convention).
Alternative names for number groups
There are many informal alternative names for groups of numbers that can be used to simplify names. Beware you may not always be understood using these.
|
Singular |
Example Plural |
|
|
12 |
dozen |
24 = 2 dozen |
|
20 |
score |
80 = 4 score |
|
100 |
century |
300 = centuries |
|
1,000 |
grand, k |
Naming large numbers exercise
Practise reading these numbers out loud:
- 4,567
- 367
- 98,745
- 120,005
- 5,000
- 34,230
- 873,120
- 10,043
- 7,340,200
- 54,500
- 24
- 4,567,090
- 67,000
- 92,000,031
- 1,000,010,000,023
Suggested Answers
- 4,567 – four thousand, five hundred and sixty-seven
- 342 – three hundred and forty-two
- 98,745 – ninety-eight thousand, seven hundred and forty-five
- 120,005 – one hundred and twenty thousand and five
- 5,000 – five thousand, or five k, g or grand
- 34,230 – thirty four thousand, two hundred and thirty
- 873,120 – eight hundred and seventy three thousand, one hundred and twenty
- 10,043 – ten thousand and forty three
- 7,340,200 – seven million, three hundred and forty thousand, two hundred
- 5,500 – five thousand, five hundred or fifty-five hundred
- 24 – two dozen
- 4,567,090 – four million, five hundred and sixty seven thousand and ninety
- 67,000 – sixty seven thousand, sixty seven k, grand or g
- 92,000,031 – ninety two million and thirty one
- 1,000,010,000,023 – one trillion, ten million and twenty three
Thanks.
165,200,000km’2 one hundered sixty five thousand two million .is that true please
Hi Raniya – the other way around, one hundred sixty five million (the larger number), two hundred thousand.
It looks so awkward when it comes to to bigger numbers, especially for us(Indians). Our system is much simpler.
u thought there us “and” before the two hundred thousand?
Hi Vivan, we wouldn’t generally put an ‘and’ between bigger numbers, mostly it comes when we have smaller units within larger numbers. Otherwise it can sound like the millions and hundred thousands refer to different numbers.
Now I’m confused… Shouldn’t it be one hundred and sixty-five million and two hundred thousand?
Hi Lucia, as I said above – we wouldn’t necessarily use “and” here because it could sound like two separate numbers. It makes sense for them to flow together without “and”. However, it wouldn’t necessarily be an error, it can still be understand with “and” and you may find some speakers say it that way.
Very helpful, thanks!!
You’re welcome!
342 three hundred and forty two. Can I just say three hundred forty two instead?
Hi Mary Ann – yes you can, in spoken English.
Hello there. Is year’s full form hyphenated? Thanks in advance!
Good question – I think people write the years in full so rarely that it’s probably not very well regulated. My style guides don’t seem to cover it. I would imagine it’s often written with only double-digit numbers hyphenated, i.e. the last two numbers. A chief example I think would be the title for George Orwell’s book 1984, which I believe is typically written as “Nineteen Eighty-Four”.
Helped me a lot!!!
You put 1,000,000,000,000 as quadrillion when it is actually one trillion!
Hi Evan, thanks for spotting that – not sure how that slipped through, but I’ve updated it now!
Thanks a lot. I was struggling with big numbers which had zero as the 3rd / 2nd last digit of the number like 345 004. I was like three hundred and forty five thousand four. Having read this lesson, it’s now three hundred and forty five thousand and four.
You’re welcome, I’m glad it’s helped!
Can i read 1991 as nineteen ninety one? Thank u..
Yes, that would be the common way to say the full year.
The use of “and” in reading large numbers is causing me some trouble. For example, 123456 is read one hundred twenty three thousand four hundred and fifty six or one hundred and twenty three thousand four hundred and fifty six?
Hi Bea, sorry for the slow reply – there’s some flexibility here, you could use more than one “and” as you say, or just the final “and”. I think it only really applies to hundreds of thousands, along these lines, “X hundred and X thousand, X hundred and X.” But some people would leave out the first “and”, “X hundred X thousand, X hundred and X.”
Very helpful..thanks a lot
That’s how I usually say it!
But I can’t remember for the life of me where did i pick it up…
Is it considered correct… strictly speaking?
Yes, if you’re saying it like that (i.e. only using the extra ‘and’ for hundreds and thousands) then it shouldn’t be considered incorrect.
How to say this 1100000
That would be one million, one hundred thousand.
Is eleven hundred thousand ok?
Sorry for the slow reply – no, though we do sometimes talk about low thousands as hundreds interchangeably, typically we do not take hundreds of thousands beyond nine, as it then becomes millions.
I.e. 900,000 = nine hundred thousand, but 10,000,000+ becomes one million.
Can you say 1100000 as one million and one hundred thousand
Hi Hassan – you could in theory, I think regionally some people might say that, but typically I wouldn’t, definitely not if it’s followed by a noun (e.g. one million, one hundred thousand geese). More likely if it’s on its own (e.g. How many essays have you written? One million and one hundred thousand.)
But I would avoid the “and” between two large numbers like that because in some contexts it could make it sound like they are two separate large numbers.
Hello Phil.
May I ask you,
The “and” must only be placed after the hundreds, or it can follow the thousands as well? In 10.001 for instance, should it read “ten thousand one” or “ten thousand and one”?
Thank you.
Hi Matias,
Good question as I suppose the article doesn’t make that explicitly clear – the ‘and’ is used to connect any larger number with single or double-digit numbers. It’s easier to say what ‘and’ comes before, rather than after – which is any number below a hundred that forms part of a larger number. E.g. any number above 100 that includes a number below 100 could include an ‘and’.
1023 – one thousand and twenty-three
43,054 – forty three thousand and fifty four
3,000,008 – three million and eight
I hope that makes it clear!
Phil
Hello ! Is it possible to say for example “three and twenty five” or “three twenty five” instead of “three hundred and twenty five” ? It seems I heard people speaking this way, but I am not sure ..
“three twenty five” yes, that’s possible and will sound more natural depending on the context (eg talking about petrol prices we’ll often refer to a 3 digit number this way, not as a decimal or with an ‘and’). The first option, “three and twenty five”, I’d say is less likely as it sounds a bit unnatural and/or archaic.
Thank you for your explanation !
I am trying to read this number and I have to say that I am not 100% sure.
How would you read 3.085.025? Is it three million and eighty-five thousand and twenty-five?
I have been trying to understand all the positions where “and” is used in British English.
125 = one hundred and twenty-five
85.125 = eighty-five thousand one hundred and twenty five
985.125 = nine hundred and eighty-five thousand one hundred and twenty five
3.985.125 = three million nine hundred and eighty-five thousand one hundred and twenty five
If I remove “one hundred” the “and” stays. But what happens if I remove nine hundred thousand? Does the “and” stay as well?
85.025 = eighty-five thousand and twenty five
3.085.125 = ???
Hi Jovana – you’ve got it all almost exactly right, but yes, this is a tricky bit. We don’t typically use another ‘and’ during a million and thousands, so if you remove the nine hundred, there is no additional “and”:
Three million, eighty-five thousand, one hundred and twenty-five.
Also note we typically write numbers with commas instead of decimals, as the decimal denotes smaller parts of an integer, while the comma denotes larger numbers. (i.e. 3,085,125)
Thank you for the quick reply!
I didn’t even notice that commas are used there. I overlooked it completely. It definitely won’t happen in the future!
One more quick question. Do we keep the commas in case of ordinal numbers? If the cardinal number is written as 1,000, is the ordinal number written as 1,000th or 1000th?
Sorry to bother you again…
Sorry Jovana, I missed this comment – yes, the comma stays with ordinal numbers (or rather, being an ordinal number doesn’t change it – if our style has a comma, it stays, if not, we still don’t have one).
How would you read 2,080,030 ? My feeling is we only need the ‘and’ before the 30 but it sounds strange before the 80. So is it correct to say two million eighty thousand and thirty?
Yes you’re correct, I would only have one “and”, before the 30 and not before the 80.
Hello, any can answer me here?
Can you read this out? 1806.06
I would say that as one thousand, eight hundred and six point zero six.
1200 – Do you say “and” between “one thousand” and “two hundred”? Thanks for your help!
Hi Marie, no we wouldn’t usually say “and” between the thousand and hundreds, so it’d just be one thousand two hundred.
Hi, could you let me know if this $2,513,000,000 is the same as $2,513 millions or should be $2,513 billions?
Hi Rod, that would be either $2,513 million or $2.513 billion (note both million and billion are singular here).
Dear Phil, sorry to come back for the same question, but I didn´t get it well: how do you write the number $2,513,000,000 shortern: a) $2,513 million or b) $2.513 billion.
Hi Rod, sorry for the slow reply – both are correct, depending on if you want to describe it in millions or billions.
wow, English sometimes is complex to me, but this is really difficult.
How a unique number ($2,513,000,000) can be written in two different ways?. It is confusing, isn´t it?
$2,500,000 can be written as “2,5 million”
$2,500,000,000 can be written as “2,5 billion”
Now, when we use more digits as my original question: “2,513” gets me crazy.
How do you write in short:
$2,513,000 – $2,513 million (correct?)
$2,513,000,000 – $2,513 billion (correct?)
Thanks for your patience. I have asked some friends that speaks English very well, but got confused with this question!
Hi Rod, yes I can see why it might confusing! But the important difference is that it is 2,513 million but 2.513 billion (with a period not a comma). The period shifts the unit of measurement for the same number, the same way we can say either 1.5 kilograms or 1500 grams.
But your example there is incorrect – $2,513,000 would be $2.153 million.
To make life a little easier, I should say at the point that we’re describing thousands of millions or billions etc. we are more likely to use the next higher measurement, so while we could say $2,153,000,000 is $2,153 million (i.e. two thousand million) it would be simpler/more common to say $2.153 billion.
Such an awesome resource! Wow really helpful, and I’m an English speaker such a clear way to study and teach this!!
Glad it helped!
Phil, how would an accountant normally call this number for instance “$2.159 million”?
Hi Iryna,
Slightly tricky one as the convention would generally be “two point X million”, here “two pint one five nine million”, but when the decimal (or hundreds of thousands in this case) goes beyond two digits it may sound better to say the number in full, “two million, one hundred and fifty nine thousand).
How to say this number 1,367,820,000
Hi Jeziel, I would encourage you to go by the tables in this post to try – as you have 1,xxx,xxx,xxx, you start with one billion, and go from there in groups of three (367,xxx,xxx – million – and 820,xxx – thousand): one billion, three hundred and sixty-seven million, eight hundred and twenty thousand.
What about if I want to call out digits in a string of numbers? Would it be correct to say 4819 contains ‘four, eight and one nine’ or it had to be ‘four, eight, one and nine’? Generally what guides calling out numbers in twos from a large number?
This will vary depending on needs; if we’re just listing the numbers in a string, it’s quite common to simply say them as a list one after another, four-eigh-one-nine, though you could put the “and” before the last number. The ‘and’ is optional, and mostly not used, when listing strings of numbers. Calling them out in pairs may help to be clear though, yes, though when it comes to numbers that aren’t necessarily quantities this really just depends on what’s easiest. Phone numbers are often called out in groups of three, while bank card numbers might be offered in groups of four; how the number is written down often helps guide how these are said. For example, a phone number might be grouped according to an area code then broken into threes or fours: (555) 7124 9439 – five-five-five, seven-one-two-four, nine-four-three-nine (with no need for ‘and’ in here).
The bottom line being, when it comes to strings of numbers there’s a lot of flexibility!
Hi, how would it be correct: 1 million an a half people or 1 and a half million people. Thank you so much!
“one and a half million” – with fractions, they typically go before the unit we are dividing.
Very helpful, thank you!
You’re welcome!
How to say this number 103,006. Please
I would encourage you to try it yourself from the tables in the article!
Hi Phil,
would you please say this number “70000140”, when you refere to a material number and not to a price for example?
Many Thanks
Bahman
Hi Bahman,
It would depend on if you want to give it as a total number (e.g. an amount), in which case you’d need to break the number into groups of 3 (from right to left) and use the tables above. If it’s a phone number or a meter reading or some other example where the series of numbers rather than the total is important, then you could break it down in any way that feels comfortable, for example in twos or threes (70, 00, 01, 40), or simply read one number at a time (7,0,0,0…). You could also break this around the zeros as there are many: 7, 4 zeros, 140.
Phil
Hi Phil,
I’m a student from the Czech Republic and I’m revising the numbers. I have one question:
How to write: 1 000 100?
With comma or with “and”?
And what about: 1 000 000 100?
Many thanks
Vojtěch
Hi Vojtěch,
If we’re writing it as a number, it would typically be as shown in the article, with commas (no space) between every 3 digits, 1,000,100, 1,00,000,100. We’d only use “and” if you write it out in words (which would similarly use commas after the 3 digit designations, as in the article examples).
Phil
Hi!
Thank you for the explanation. I have been struggling with large numbers since I started to study English. Could you please just tell me how I can divide the thousands into tens? I mean; 1919 (nineteen nineteen instead of one thousand nine hundred (and) nine).
Is there any rule for this? I guess it would be so nice to post something related to this as I have not been able to find any website with any information about it.
Thanks in advance.
Hi Leonardo,
That’s a good question that I should probably add to the article overall, as it’s an important distinction. Generally, we use the conventions in the article to say thousands, with the different options above, but we break it down into units of ten for years. And on the other side of that, we very rarely use conventional forms of numbering (e.g. one thousand, nine hundred and nineteen) to refer to years, as that is rather archaic, though you might find it in more formal, old-fashioned or dramatic formats, usually proceeded by “the year”.
I hope this helps; indeed it might be worth expanding on for a post of its own, to draw attention to it.
Phil
Good evening. Please, can you help me understand better when it is possible to read the following number as 1357 – one thousand three hundred and fifty-seven dollars, or it is possible to say thirteen fifty-seven (the same as reding years). Thanks in advance.
Hi Yuliia,
Absolutely; I only just added this detail to the article so it might need some extra thought, but essentially I’d say it would usually be one thousand three hundred and fifty-seven if you’re talking about quantities (i.e. answering “how much/how many”) but we could split it as we do for years if the number referred to something that wasn’t a quantity, e.g. a number sequence (like a PIN or password) or an address like a house number or PO Box. This will depend a bit on context, so there aren’t really absolutes, but the thing to note would be if you’re referring to a quantity we wouldn’t usually split it.
I hope this helps!
Phil
Amazing, This helped me a lot, thanks!!
You’re weclome!
Hello. How to read numbers less than 0 correctly?
Thanks, Valery
Hi Valery,
Good question, this varies a bit depending on regions, but we mostly say “minus” (common where I’m from) or “negative” before the number. The rest of the number would be said the same as usual. E.g. -2 = “minus/negative two”, -43,520 = “minus/negative forty three thousand, five hundred and twenty”. There can also be some variations depending on the context, for example if you’re talking about temperatures in some areas people may say “below (zero)” (where the zero is optional), but this would be after the number, e.g. -30 = “thirty below (zero)”.
Phil
Thanks, And how to read numbers less than 1 correctly? I read Lectures in English for foreign students and there are problems with this.
That one is a bit more varied; I would personally say “nought point …” or just “point …” but you may also hear “zero point”, fractions, and other variations instead of “point”. But the numbers that follow the decimal would usually just be said in sequence (i.e. as individual numbers).
E.g. 0.25 could be “nought point two five”, “point two five”, “zero point five” or “a quarter”.
It’s probably a topic worthy of its own post!
Phil
Hello sir,
Can we say numbers like “234” as “Two thirty four”?
Hi Maddie, yes it is possible; it depends a little on the context, but generally it would acceptable if you want to be clear about the specific digits (but if discussing quantities we usually wouldn’t say it this way, as it could be confused for 2.34).
how to read 11.57 hectares
Usually it would be eleven point five-seven, with decimals we just read out the following numbers individually.
I’m puzzled by responses from Siri where large number pronunciations include words that sound like “lack” and “crow”. I even asked for the value of pi and these words were also included in the decimal portion of the answer. What’s that all about?
I’m not sure what that would be, do you have an option to review what Siri says as a transcript?