Numeral – cardinal, ordinal & creation of dates
CARDINAL NUMERALS – “GREAT” NUMBERS
We should read the numbers greater than 100 as follows:
| numeral | how should we read |
|---|---|
| 131 | one hundred and thirty-one |
| 408 | four hundred and eight |
| 2009 | two thousand and nine |
| 6750 | six thousand and fifty |
| 11,433 | eleven thousand four hundred and thirty-three |
| 67,000 | sixty-seven thousand |
| 500,000 | five hundred thousand |
| 1,000,000 | one million |
Before the last part of a number use of “and“ is necessary:
272 – two hundred and seventy – two
“Thousands“ need to be separated by a comma in spelling:
2,350 – two thousand and fifty
If 100, 1000 or 1000000 appears separately, then one should say “a hundred, a thousand, a million.”
“A” is usually replaced with “one” in compounds:
1,450 – one thousand four hundred and fifty
Words such as “hundred, thousand, million” appearing in ordinal numerals do not have plural:
two thousand
three hundred
ORDINAL NUMERALS
Ordinal numerals answering questions: Which? Which in turn?
These are created by adding an ending -th to a cardinal numeral:
four – fourth
ten – tenth
Numbers from 1 to 3 are an exception:
one – first
two – second
three – third
In higher numbers, only the last part has the ordinal form:twenty one – twenty first
two hundred and seventy two – two hundred seventy – second
In some numbers before adding an ending -th little changes in spelling shall be done:
y ieth
twenty – twentieth
thirty – thirtieth
ve fth
five – fifth
twelve – twelfth
In most cases, you must use the definite article “the” before the ordinal numerals:
I live on the second floor.
Numerical record of ordinal numerals usually requires the use of literal abbreviation (the last two word’s letters):
5th
20th
1st
32nd
100th
CREATION OF DATES
THE DATES
The dates in English can be read two ways:
18th May
the eighteenth of May
May the eighteenth
1st January
the first of January
January the first
THE YEAR
“The year” is read by dividing it into two numbers that are prime (not ordinal) numbers:
1772
seventeen seventy – two
1900
nineteen hundred
