Numbers: Some surprising pronunciations

Not every number in English is pronounced the way you'd expect. Say, for example, that your destination is 1167 E. Washington Avenue, in some typical American city. The natural reflex would be to pronounce the number at that address as one thousand one hundred and sixty seven - a big mistake. The English-speaker is always in a hurry, and if there's a way to cut out a few syllables here and there, he or she will do just that. Examples of this tendency can be seen in see ya (I will see you), gotta go = I have got to go  and howya doin = How are you doing? The number in an address  is reduced to a minimum. First we divide it into two parts. 1167 becomes 11 - 67: eleven sixty seven - a net loss of four syllables. But the biggest problem for you, a foreigner who is trying to speak as correctly as possible, is that the person you're talking to is not really expecting this and sometimes may not understand you. That said, here are some tips for appropriate, and perhaps more importantly, understandable,  pronunciation of numbers in various contexts.

Oh vs. zero

We learn (and teach) that 0 = zero, and it is, but not always. 0 is actually zero in the mathematical realm. 9-9 = 0. Nine minus nine equals zero. 0.09 = Zero point zero nine. But in phone numbers, ID numbers, addresses, room numbers, social security numbers, ZIP codes, and so on, 0 = oh. For example, the telephone number 9901-0047 is nine nine oh one (pause, voice rises a bit) oh oh (voice rises slightly) four seven (voice drops). But it's okay to use zero, and sometimes people use zero to make everything clear - zero has two syllables, after all, and it's harder to misunderstand if you have a bad telephone connection or are talking to someone who is hard of hearing. It is therefore possible to say that you live in apartment 401 = four zero one, but it's much more normal to say four oh one. My zip code is 74020-040 = four seven oh two oh  (voice rises, pause) oh four oh (voice drops). Oh is also used with a divided number. 5701 = fifty-seven oh one.

Phone numbers

Digits in telephone numbers are pronounced separately, with pauses indicated by hyphens. 55-62-3567-7675 = five - five (pause, voice rises) six-two (pause, voice rises) three-five-six-seven (pause, voice rises) seven-six (pause, voice rises)-seven five (voice drops). At the end of each two-digit group, your voice goes up a little, as if you were asking a yes or no question, and in the last group, the voice falls back to where it began. In British English, 44 = double four, 777 = triple seven, and I would imagine that 8888 would be either quadruple 8 or double eight double eight. We wouldn't normally say this in North America, though. For us, 777 is seven-seven-seven. When the number ends in 0 0, you have two options: oh - oh or hundred. In a TV or radio commercial, the announcer sometimes reads a number of this sort both ways to increase its impact. 453-7500: four five three (pause, voice rising) seven five (voice rising) oh oh (voice down) That's four five three, seventy-five hundred.

Years - 1999 = 19-99 = Nineteen ninety nine

In general, years are divided in the middle: # # - # # or # - # #: 1871 = 18-71 - eighteen seventy-one. AD 453, AD = 4-53 = four fifty-three AD (AD is the Latin anno domini, the year of the Lord = after Christ). I say in general, because now, in the 21st century, the years are getting two different treatments:  2012 = 20-12 = twenty twelve, but it is more common to hear 2-012 = two thousand (and) twelve. The Google results are striking, if not especially scientific:

Two thousand and twelve:  2.3 million
Two thousand twelve: 500,000
TOTAL 2,800,000

Twenty-twelve 700,000

Since the English-speaking world has no central linguistic authority such as the Academie Française or Brazilian Academy of Letters to legislate on this subject, you are free to choose whatever form you like. Personally, I prefer two thousand twelve: the and before twelve adds nothing but an extra syllable.

In addition to years, we use this division in addresses: 4684 W. Palm St. - 46-84 forty-six eighty-four.  We can include hundred for extra clarity: 1512 = fifteen twelve or fifteen hundred (and) twelve

1500 = Fifteen hundred

It would seem logical to pronounce 1500 as one thousand five hundred, but in informal English, those zeros at the end become hundred and everything changes. We seem to be allergic to thousand day-to-day numbers. 1500 = fifteen hundred. This goes for statistics, years (except for the year 2000 which is always pronounced two thousand) and prices. 2500 spectators = twenty-five hundred spectators. $ 7900 = seventy-nine hundred dollars. When the final digits are not 00, there is still the possibility of using hundred, but thousand may be clearer. 5871 people = fifty-eight hundred (and) seventy-one people or we could very well say five thousand eight hundred and seventy one people. The syllabic count is almost the same.  Thousand is used in mathematics and in the written part of a check = One thousand four hundred and 44/100 dollars = $ 1400.44.  The everyday pronunciation would be fourteen hundred dollars and forty-four cents.

Prices

Prices hava a short, informal version and a full. official version. $ 1.79 = a dollar seventy nine, but on a check, you would write one dollar and seventy nine cents. Where Portuguese and some other languages use a comma, English uses a point and vice versa.  We don't say point in prices, but we do in other contexts.  FM 95.9 = Kiss FM. ninety five point nine. But  $ 2.98 = two ninety eight (short version) or two dollars and ninety-eight cents (long version). R$ 279. 95 = two seventy nine ninety five or to be more precise, two hundred and seventy nine reals and ninety five centavos. The context of a price is important. Eighty-nine seventy-five can be $ 8975 (the price of a car) or $ 89.95 (the price of a toaster).   Two ninety-eight can be either $2.98 or $298.00

Hundred vs hundreds

We use the plurals hundreds and thousands by themselves, without other numbers. Hundreds = groups of a hundred, thousands = groups of a thousand. Hundreds of people attended the wedding.  Tens of thousands of people voted for Tiririca in Sao Paulo. This means that you can not say * Five thousands people came to the meeting. CORRECT: Five thousand people came to the meeting.