Saying Money, Decimals, Fractions and Percentages Out Loud in American English

Two rules cover most of this topic. First, for prices, Americans normally drop the words "dollars" and "cents" and just say two numbers: $4.99 is "four ninety-nine". Second, for decimals, the dot is read as the word "point" and every digit after the point is read separately: 3.14 is "three point one four", never "three point fourteen".

Those two rules alone fix the majority of mistakes learners make when reading numbers aloud. The rest of this guide covers big money, fractions, percentages, and the stress pattern that keeps "thirteen" from sounding like "thirty", which matters enormously when you are saying an amount someone has to pay.

Prices

There are two registers, casual and formal, and casual is what you will hear at a register, in a store, or on the phone.

• $4.99 = "four ninety-nine" (most common) or "four dollars and ninety-nine cents" (formal, used in contracts and announcements)
• $4.00 = "four dollars". When the cents are zero, you say the word "dollars". You do not say "four point zero zero".
• $0.99 = "ninety-nine cents". Under a dollar, you say "cents".
• $15.50 = "fifteen fifty"
• $120.75 = "a hundred twenty seventy-five" or, more clearly, "one twenty seventy-five"

Never say "four point ninety-nine dollars" for a price. Prices are not read as decimals.

Big money

• $1.5M = "one point five million"
• $2B = "two billion"
• $100K = "a hundred K" or "a hundred thousand". The letter K is very common in salaries: "she makes ninety K".

Decimals

Here is where speakers of Spanish, Portuguese, French and German need to reset a habit. English uses a point for decimals and a comma for thousands, which is the exact opposite of most European conventions. So the number written 1,250.75 is one thousand two hundred fifty and 75 hundredths, and it is read "one thousand two hundred fifty point seven five".

Then the digit rule: after the point, read each digit on its own.

• 3.14 = three point one four
• 2.75 = two point seven five
• 0.5 = zero point five, or simply point five in casual speech
• 6.08 = six point zero eight (or "six point oh eight" when reading out data)

The word point is /pɔɪnt/ with a clear /ɔɪ/ diphthong. Say it as a separate stressed beat, not swallowed.

Fractions

Fractions use ordinal numbers for the bottom half, and you add an -s when the top number is greater than one.

• 1/2 = a half or "one half"
• 1/4 = a quarter or "one fourth"
• 1/3 = one third
• 3/4 = three quarters or "three fourths"
• 2/5 = two fifths
• 7/8 = seven eighths

Two of these are pronunciation traps. Fifths /fɪfθs/ and eighths /eɪtθs/ pile a /θ/ onto a consonant cluster, and there is no vowel to lean on. The fix is to keep the tongue tip lightly between the teeth for the /θ/ and then release straight into the /s/ without inserting a vowel. Do not say "fiftees" or "eit-uhs". Slow practice with our TH sound guide makes this much easier.

Percentages

Percent is one word in American English, and it is stressed on the second syllable: /pərˈsɛnt/. The first syllable is a reduced schwa, so it comes out "per-SENT".

• 25% = twenty-five percent
• 0.5% = point five percent or "zero point five percent"
• 100% = a hundred percent (often used as an emphatic "yes" in conversation)

Note that "percent" does not take a plural -s: it is "twenty percent", never "twenty percents".

Reference Table

The Stress Rule for Numbers

Teen numbers and tens numbers are told apart by stress, not by the vowel. This is critical with money, where mishearing $13 as $30 costs you.

• thirTEEN /θɜːrˈtiːn/ has a full /t/ and stress on the second syllable
• THIRty /ˈθɜːrɾi/ has a flap T (a quick tap, close to a soft d) and stress on the first syllable

There is a twist worth knowing. When a teen number stands alone or ends a phrase, the stress sits on TEEN. But when it is directly followed by a stressed noun, English shifts the stress backward to avoid two strong beats in a row. So you get "It costs thirTEEN" but "It costs THIRteen DOLLars". This is called stress shift, and native speakers do it automatically.

Also watch twenty. Americans delete the /t/ after /n/, so it is /ˈtwɛni/, sounding like "twenny". "Twenty dollars" comes out "twenny dollars". This is standard, not sloppy.

Everyday Words Around Numbers

Real conversations wrap numbers in a small set of vague and casual expressions, and using them makes you sound far more natural than a technically correct but stiff figure.

• bucks is the everyday word for dollars: "it cost me forty bucks". Use it in casual speech, never in a formal document.
• and change means a bit more: "twenty dollars and change" is somewhere between $20 and $21.
• about, around, roughly, approximately soften a figure: "around fifty percent". "Approximately" is the formal option.
• a couple of means two and "a few" means about three, and both reduce heavily in speech: "a couple of" becomes /ə ˈkʌpləv/.
• even marks a round figure: "that comes to fifty even".
• half off and fifty percent off mean the same thing on a price tag.

Notice how often reduction hits these phrases. "A hundred and twenty dollars" in fast speech becomes something like "a hundred an twenny dollars", with the and flattened to /ən/. Aiming for the reduced version rather than the careful one is what makes your numbers sound American.

Practice

Read these out loud, then check the cards below: $7.25, 0.75, 3/8, 45%, $2.3M, 12,400.50.

Numbers are one of the fastest ways to sound fluent or to lose your listener, so drill them daily. Our consonant practice exercises will help with the /θ/ clusters, and our guide to telling the time uses the same teen versus tens stress rule.