Numbers

The Quantifiers: talking about numbers in English

CARDINAL and ORDINAL NUMBERS

The cardinal numbers (one, two, three, etc.) are adjectives referring to quantity, and the ordinalnumbers (first, second, third, etc.) refer to distribution.

Number	Cardinal	Ordinal
1	one	first
2	two	second
3	three	third
4	four	fourth
5	five	fifth
6	six	sixth
7	seven	seventh
8	eight	eighth
9	nine	ninth
10	ten	tenth
11	eleven	eleventh
12	twelve	twelfth
13	thirteen	thirteenth
14	fourteen	fourteenth
15	fifteen	fifteenth
16	sixteen	sixteenth
17	seventeen	seventeenth
18	eighteen	eighteenth
19	nineteen	nineteenth
20	twenty	twentieth
21	twenty-one	twenty-first
22	twenty-two	twenty-second
23	twenty-three	twenty-third
24	twenty-four	twenty-fourth
25	twenty-five	twenty-fifth
26	twenty-six	twenty-sixth
27	twenty-seven	twenty-seventh
28	twenty-eight	twenty-eighth
29	twenty-nine	twenty-ninth
30	thirty	thirtieth
31	thirty-one	thirty-first
40	forty	fortieth
50	fifty	fiftieth
60	sixty	sixtieth
70	seventy	seventieth
80	eighty	eightieth
90	ninety	ninetieth
100	one hundred	hundredth
500	five hundred	five hundredth
1,000	one thousand	thousandth
100,000	one hundred thousand	hundred thousandth
1,000,000	one million	millionth

Examples

• There are twenty-five people in the room.
• He was the fourteenth person to win the award since 1934.
• Six hundred thousand people were left homeless after the earthquake.
• I must have asked you twenty times to be quiet.
• He went to Israel for the third time this year.

Fractions and decimals

Said	Written	Said
half	0.5	point five
a quarter	0.25	point two five
three quarters	0.75	point seven five

Percentages

Written	Said
25%	twenty five percent
50%	fifty percent
75%	seventy five percent
100%	a/one hundred percent

Units

Written	Said
$1,200	one thousand two hundred dollars
£16,486	sixteen thousand four hundred and eighty-six pounds
545kms	five hundred and forty-five kilometres
$25.35	twenty-five dollars thirty-five

Years

Written	Said
1988	Nineteen eighty-eight
1864	Eighteen sixty-four
1999	Nineteen ninety-nine

How to say '0'

nought	used in mathematical expressions and decimals:'nought times three equals nought' 0.3 = 'nought point three' (or 'point three') 0.03 = 'point nought three'
zero	used in scientific expressions, especially temperatures:20oC = minus twenty degrees ortwenty degrees below zero also used to mean 'the lowest point': 'The heavy rain reduced visibility to zero'
'o' (the letter)	used in telephone numbers:0171 390 0062 = 'o one seven one three nine o double o six two'
nil/nothing	used to express the score in games such as football: 2 - 0 = 'two nil' or 'two nothing'

THE QUANTIFIERS

Quantifiers with countable and uncountable nouns

Adjectives and adjectival phrases that describe quantity are shown below. Some can only go withcountable nouns (friends, cups, people), and some can only go with uncountable nouns (sugar, tea, money, advice). The words in the middle column can be used with both countable and uncountable nouns.

Only with uncountable nouns	With uncountable and countable nouns	Only with countable nouns
How much?	How much or How many?	How many?
a little	no/none	a few
a bit (of)	not any	a number (of)
-	some (any)	several
a great deal of	a lot of	a large number of
a large amount of	plenty of	a great number of
-	lots of	-
+ noun

Note: much and many are used in negative and question forms.

Examples

• How much money have you got?
• How many cigarettes have you smoked?
• There's not much sugar in the cupboard.
• There weren't many people at the concert.

They are also used with too, (not) so, and (not) as :There were too many people at the concert - we couldn't see the band.
It's a problem when there are so many people.
There's not so much work to do this week.

In positive statements, we use a lot of:

Examples

• I've got a lot of work this week.
• There were a lot of people at the concert.

The Quantifiers

Graded Quantifiers

They function like comparatives and hold a relative position on a scale of increase ordecrease.

INCREASE From 0% to 100%
With plural countable nouns:
many	more	most
With uncountable nouns:
much	more	most
DECREASE From 100% to 0%
With plural countable nouns:
few	fewer	fewest
With uncountable nouns:
little	less	least

Examples

• There are many people in England, more in India, but the most people live in China.
• Much time and money is spent on education, more on health services but the most is spent on national defence.
• Few rivers in Europe are not polluted.
• Fewer people die young now than in the seventeenth century.
• The country with the fewest people per square kilometre must be Australia.
• Scientists have little hope of finding a complete cure for cancer before the year 2,000.
• She had less time to study than Paul but had better results.
• Give that dog the least opportunity and it will bite you.

THE QUANTIFIERS

Enough + Noun

Enough is placed before the noun, to indicate the quantity required or necessary:

Examples

• There is enough bread for lunch.
• She has enough money.

Enough is also used with adverbs.

Examples

• We didn't have enough time to visit London Bridge.
• Are there enough eggs to make an omelette?
• Richard has enough talent to become a singing star.

THE QUANTIFIERS

Quantifiers are adjectives and adjectival phrases that give approximate answers to the questions "How much?" and "How many?"

Examples

I've got a little money. 
I've got a lot of friends.