In this mini episode, you will learn how native English speakers often say certain large numbers.
Episode 268 of the Everybody ESL podcast is a mini episode that teaches you how native English speakers often say certain large numbers. Send your questions about English and your suggestions for future episodes to EverybodyESL@gmail.com! (And let me know if you’d like to record the introduction to a future episode.)
Intro
“Hi, everybody! This is Kirsten, from China. And you are listening to Everybody ESL.”
Welcome to episode 268 of Everybody ESL, the podcast for everybody who wants to improve their English, practice their English, or just learn more English. My name is Ben, and I have a mini episode for you today, where I am going to teach you about one English topic. You can subscribe to the Everybody ESL podcast at Apple podcasts, on the Stitcher app, and wherever you find your podcasts. If you like Everybody ESL, leave it a good review so other people can find out about it too. And if you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. Okay! Let’s get on with this mini episode.
The episode
In this episode, I want to teach you something about how we use numbers. I’m thinking of the way that we say big numbers—numbers that are more than 1,000. There is a special thing that native English speakers often do when they are speaking about big numbers, numbers more than 1,000. It’s not all numbers more than 1,000. It is numbers more than 1,000 that are made of a certain number of hundreds.
I’m talking about numbers like 400, 500, 600, and so on, but numbers that are bigger than 1,000. In other words, a number like 1,100. Or 2,400. Or 8,600. Numbers like that.
When we say numbers like that—numbers that are made of a certain number of hundreds and are bigger than 1,000—we often talk about them as a certain number of hundreds.
I think an example will make this a lot clearer than my explanation.
Instead of saying, “two thousand three hundred,” you will often hear native speakers say, “twenty-three hundred.” In other words, we say the number in terms of how many hundreds it is.
Instead of “two thousand three hundred,” you will often hear “twenty-three hundred.” Instead of “one thousand seven hundred,” you will often hear “seventeen hundred.” Instead of “six thousand three hundred,” you will often hear “sixty-three hundred.”
There are two important things to notice about this:
The first one is that we always use the singular form of hundred. We don’t say hundreds. We say, “sixty-three hundred,” not “sixty-three hundreds.”
The second important thing to notice is that we only do this with numbers that are only a certain number of hundreds. In other words, “six thousand three hundred” will often come out as “sixty-three hundred.” But “six thousand three hundred and twenty-five” will probably not come out as “sixty-three hundred and twenty-five.” We do it with numbers that are only a certain number of hundreds, with nothing left over.
Is this something that you learned in an English class or in an English textbook? I have a feeling that this is the kind of thing that textbooks and classes might not always teach.
But if you say this kind of big number as a certain number of hundreds, instead of a certain number of thousands and a certain number of hundreds, your English will sound much more natural.
Outro
This is the end of episode 268 of Everybody ESL. Remember: if you have questions about English, or if you have comments or suggestions for the podcast, or if you would like to record an introduction that I can play at the beginning of future episodes—the same way Kirsten recorded the introduction you heard at the beginning of this episode—send an email to everybodyESL@gmail.com. I’ll be back soon with a new episode, and until then, keep going, keep practicing, and keep learning. Goodbye! I’ll see you soon.