Hi, and welcome! My name is Abbe and I’m your English teacher here at MosaLingua.
Today’s topic is numbers and counting in English. Numbers are some of the first things we learn in any
foreign language, because we use them a LOT in everyday life. Dates, times, prices,
even the candles on your birthday cake! You might already know how to count in English,
at least up to ten, but even if you do, I have some tips to share with you today that I think
will be helpful as you learn to count higher and use English numbers in conversation.
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Now, I’ll start with the basics, how to write and pronounce English numbers. But if
you are an intermediate or advanced learner, don’t close your browser just yet! You can
watch the whole video as a refresher, or skip over the things you already know. I’ll also
talk about some more advanced topics related to numbers and counting, including fractions and decimals.
So, if you’re ready, let’s get started: three, two, one, liftoff!
English uses the Arabic numeral system, like many other languages you might know, so you
might already be familiar with how they look. You will see some Roman numerals like I, X, and
V on some statues, in some chapter books, and even at the Super Bowl. But in general,
Arabic numerals are much more common.
First things first, here are the numbers one through twenty in English.
Listen carefully to how I pronounce them. You can even pause the video and repeat after
me: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine,
ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,
seventeen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty.
You should also learn the tens: ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty,
sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety.
And a few bigger numbers: hundred, thousand, million, billion.
Now, you have all of the building blocks you need to start making more “complex” numbers.
Now it’s your turn! How do you think you would say this number?
…Did you guess “ninety-five”?
Whenever you have a two-digit number, you simply say the number from the tens column, from
the tens we just learned, and then the number from the ones column. When you write two digit
numbers, they should always be hyphenated, unless they are only one word, such as “eleven.”
Let’s try a bigger number: how about this one?
The correct answer is “one hundred and seventy-three,”
“one hundred seventy-three,” or simply, “one seventy three.” We tend to drop the
“and” when speaking, and we also omit the “hundred” when talking about things like
your weight or your bowling score.
When you get into the thousands, millions, billions, etc. just pile up those numbers
in front. For example, for this number, we would say
“nine thousand three hundred and forty-two.”
These are called cardinal numbers.
Now I want to talk to you about ordinal numbers. Ordinal numbers are the numbers we use to talk about
order, for example, who won the Tour de France bike race? Who came in first place? What
about second place? And third?
Any numbers after 3 get a “th” at the end. For example: ninth. With the exception of
“eleventh,” “twelfth,” and “thirteenth,” any number ending in a 1, 2, or 3
takes the same endings that I mentioned for the bicycle race winners: “st” for 1, “nd”
for 2, and “rd” for 3.
Knowing this will also come in handy if you are ever in an American city and need to tell
someone which street you are on. Many of our streets are numbered. For example:
If you’re at the corner of 43rd Street and Lexington Avenue in New York City,
you’re at the famous Chrysler building!
Ordinal numbers are also useful for expressing fractions. The numerator, or top number, is
always a cardinal number, like the ones we saw at the beginning of this video: one, two,
three, etc. The bottom number, the denominator, is always an ordinal number. For example,
if you need to tell someone how much sugar you need for a recipe, you might tell them, “one-fourth”
of a cup. The exception to this is one over two which
is always one half.
As you know, another way to express fractions of numbers is in decimal form. Remember:
In English, we use a period, unlike some other languages which use a comma. How do you think we would
say this number?
We would say, “one point five five.”
Unless of course you’re talking about money, in which case, we would say “one fifty-five,”
“a dollar fifty-five,” or “one dollar and fifty-five cents.”
There is lots more to say about numbers and counting in English, but that’s all the time
I have for today. There are some links to our blog in the video description if you need
a refresher or want to learn more about English numbers in your native language. I’ll see
you again soon, and until then, happy learning!
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