Know The Numbers

Numbers are a very important part of the listening section. You will hear them a lot and most importantly they will be of different types. For example, sometime you will hear a phone number or the other times a date or a price or a decimal fraction. So, let us understand what these numbers are and make sure that the exam does not gives you creeps.

Telephone numbers
There are different ways of speaking a telephone number.

  1. They are spoken as individual numbers. For instance, 23489 will be spoken as “ two three four eight nine”.
  2. The numbers even get grouped. For example, if the number is a seven digit number, they get grouped in two groups, one of three and the other of four. So, 234569 will be said as “ two three four…..(pause) five six nine”.
  3. They even get grouped into larger numbers usually when there are zeroes in it. For instance, 234500 will be said as “two three four five hundred”.
  4. Zero often gets pronounced as “o” as in go.
  5. Terms such as triple and double are used if there are more than one digit. For example, the phone number 2349992 will be spoken as “two three four….. triple nine six”.
Know The Numbers

Know The Numbers

Decimal numbers
If you have already learnt math, you won’t have difficulty understanding it. Either ways, it is neither too tough. A decimal such as 23.34 is spoken in two parts. The first part i.e. before the point is pronounced in its entirety i.e. twenty three. Next comes a dot, which is pronounced as “point” and the digits after point are read as single numbers. As in, three four. So, the entire number is spoken as, twenty three point three four.
Fractions
Apart from half (1/2), quarter (1/4) and a third (1/3), every other fraction is spoken with a ‘th’ at the end. For example- 4/5 is spoken as “four-fifth”.
Dates
There are two ways of expressing dates-

  1. In Britain English, the day comes before the month and periods are often used to separate elements. For example, July 3 1994 will be written as 3.07.1994.
  2. In American English, the month comes before the day and slashes are used to separate elements. For example – December 9 1995 will be written as 09/03/1995.

However, in IELTS, you either write date as – 3 July. If it is compulsory to add the year, you must write, 3 July 1994.

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