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  • Hello. I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to another episode of Study English, IELTS preparation.

  • Today we're going to listen to a finance report. It's filled with numbers and amounts, expressed

  • in a variety of ways.

  • It's important to be able to understand and describe numerical data using decimals, fractions

  • and currencies.

  • Listen to the day's finance report.

  • The Australian dollar, today Tuesday the 11th of November, continues to rise against the

  • US dollar, buying just over 70 cents, a 15 year high.

  • Against other currencies, however, the trend is a little different, falling against the

  • pound, closing at 0.425, a slight drop on yesterday, and 0.61 euros. The yen is also

  • strengthening at 71.95, and considerably higher against the greenback at 111.03 yen.

  • The Dow Jones Index closed today at 9809.79, a fall of 47.18 on yesterday's trading.

  • The Sydney Stock Market doubled its trading yesterday with BHP Billiton trading heavily.

  • The latest retail figures showed that turnover grew by 3.2% in the June quarter, the fastest

  • quarterly growth rate for five and a half years. At the same time, unemployment fell

  • to its lowest level in twelve and a half years.

  • OK, first we're going to look at decimals, and how you express them. Listen carefully

  • again.

  • Against other currencies, however, the trend is a little different, falling against the

  • pound, closing at 0.425, a slight drop on yesterday, and 0.61 euros. The yen is also

  • strengthening at 71.95, and considerably higher against the greenback at 111.03 yen.

  • The Dow Jones Index closed today at 9809.79, a fall of 47.18 on yesterday's trading.

  • In English, decimals are written with a point, not a comma.

  • So we write 4.25, 6.1.

  • When you say the numbers after the decimal point, you say them all separately, as individual

  • numbers.

  • So we have:

  • seventy one point nine five

  • forty seven point one eight

  • nine thousand eight hundred and nine point seven nine

  • Notice that a zero is often spoken as 'oh'.

  • Practice saying these numbers:

  • three hundred and twenty six point oh one

  • four point eight nine seven

  • nine hundred and two point three oh eight

  • Listen again:

  • Against other currencies, however, the trend is a little different, falling against the

  • pound, closing at 0.425, a slight drop on yesterday, and 0.61 euros. The yen is also

  • strengthening at 71.95, and considerably higher against the greenback at 111.03 yen.

  • The Dow Jones Index closed today at 9809.79, a fall of 47.18 on yesterday's trading.

  • The Sydney Stock Market doubled its trading yesterday with BHP Billiton trading heavily.

  • You can hear that when using numbers, there are often alternatives, and many choices you

  • can make.

  • So conversationally, we would usually say one hundred and eleven point oh three, but

  • will also often hear one hundred and eleven point zero three.

  • Here, we could say: zero point four two five

  • nought point four two five or even just point four two five

  • Notice that in North America, people usually say zero, not nought or 'oh'.

  • OK, now the other way of expressing numbers less than one is using fractions.

  • Listen to the fractions here.

  • The latest retail figures showed that turnover grew by 3.2% in the June quarter, the fastest

  • quarterly growth rate for five and a half years. At the same time, unemployment fell

  • to its lowest level in twelve and a half years.

  • She uses the most common fraction - a half.

  • Listen to how we say common fractions:

  • a half

  • a third

  • a quarter

  • two thirds

  • five eights

  • three quarters

  • Notice that once you understand the pattern, you can express any fraction you want.

  • Try these:

  • seven eighteenths

  • 16 thirtieths

  • 14 fortieths

  • OK, now listen again to some of the report. Listen for different currencies:

  • Against other currencies, however, the trend is a little different, falling against the

  • pound, closing at 0.425, a slight drop on yesterday, and 0.61 euros. The yen is also

  • strengthening at 71.95, and considerably higher against the greenback at 111.03 yen.

  • There were a number of different currencies mentioned in that clip:

  • the pound; the euro; the yen; the greenback.

  • Let's have a look at them.

  • Lots of countries use a dollar.

  • In Australia, the Australian dollar is usually expressed with the dollar sign.

  • But internationally, it's written like this AUD. We read this the Australian dollar.

  • In United States, they use the dollar as well. It's the USD, the United States dollar. But

  • often called the greenback, because it's green.

  • In Great Britain they use the pound. It is written GBP, but it's often called the pound

  • sterling.

  • In the European Union, they use the euro dollar, written like this - EUR.

  • In Japan, it's the yen, written JPY.

  • In China, it's the yuan, written CNY, and the renminbi, RMB.

  • Notice that we write the currency before the number, but we say it after the number.

  • So we read:

  • two dollars.

  • or four pounds fifteen.

  • Notice also how we read longer numbers:

  • three thousand, four hundred and seventy Japanese yen

  • one hundred and ninety two Australian dollars

  • Notice that when spoken naturally the one often becomes 'a' and the 'and' becomes squashed.

  • We don't say one hundred and ninety two but a hundred n ninety two.

  • Try this one:

  • a hundred and twenty seven thousand, three hundred and twenty two Hong Kong dollars

  • OK, now let's listen to the report again, and then we'll look at another important use

  • of numbers.

  • The Australian dollar, today Tuesday the 11th of November, continues to rise against the

  • US dollar, buying just over 70 cents, a 15 year high.

  • Notice that she says Tuesday the 11th of November.

  • Saying simple things like the date can be confusing in English, as the way they're said

  • varies.

  • In Australia, we say the 11th of November, or November the 11th. Notice that it's written

  • without the words 'the', or 'of'.

  • For the 13th of February 2005, Australians would write this: 13.05.2005.

  • But in North America, they'd write it: 02.13.2005.

  • You'll need to learn these to make sure you don't turn up somewhere on the wrong day!

  • So remember that in Australia they write the date: day dot month dot year,

  • but in North America, they write: month dot day dot year.

  • And there is an international standard that says the format should be: year dot month

  • dot day.

  • With numbers, dates, times, there are all sorts of variations. Just make sure you understand

  • the currency, the time and the date, or you could find yourself in all sorts of trouble!

  • And I'll see you soon for more Study English!

  • Bye bye.

Hello. I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to another episode of Study English, IELTS preparation.

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