# millones de euros



## 19sunflower

Hi,

How would you say 13.973 milliones de euros in English?

13,973 thousand Euros?


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## christianmn

I found "thirteen billion nine hundred seventy-three million".  Anyone who sees my answer, please notice me if it's wrong.

Hope it helps!


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## aztlaniano

christianmn said:


> I found "thirteen billion nine hundred seventy-three million".


Right. Also thirteen thousand nine hundred and seventy-three million euros.
Also 13.973 billion euros.


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## EddieZumac

aztlaniano said:


> Right. Also thirteen thousand nine hundred and seventy-three million euros.
> Also 13.973 billion euros.


Is that a decimal point in 13.973? If so, it's correct.


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## Oldy Nuts

The point is the decimal separator in English, and it's becoming the one in Spanish, with the help of our RAE.


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## aztlaniano

In English, 13.973 billion = 13,973 million. However, "thousands of millions" is very seldom used nowadays.


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## EddieZumac

aztlaniano said:


> In English, 13.973 billion = 13,973 million. However, "thousands of millions" is very seldom used nowadays.


It's not used because thousand of millions is billions.


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## Culciambo

In english that would be thirteen point nine hundred and seventy-three billion euros. (indeed, nine hundred and seventy-three thousandths)


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## Culciambo

EddieZumac said:


> It's not used because thousand of millions is billions.



That only applies for english speaking countries, brazilian portuguese, greek and turkish among others.

For me as a spanish speaker, 1 billion refers to 10^12 or 1 000 000 000 000 or one million of millions.


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## aloofsocialite

Culciambo said:


> In english that would be thirteen point nine hundred and seventy-three billion euros. (indeed, nine hundred and seventy-three thousandths)



Around here we would say "thirteen point nine seven three billion euros."


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## EddieZumac

aloofsocialite said:


> Around here we would say "thirteen point nine seven three billion euros."


I disagree because that doesn't make sense.
The correct answer, as christianmn said, is "thirteen billion nine hundred seventy-three million".

Example: for 13.17 million, you would say 13 million 17 thousand,
not 13 point 17 million.


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## aloofsocialite

Oh, I was getting tripped up on the decimal. I see what you mean! But, for 13.17 (decimal not comma) million, I would never say 13 million 17 thousand, I would say thirteen point one-seven million.

My original post, given EddieZumac's correction, I would read as "thirteen billion, nine hundred and seventy three million euros."


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## Oldy Nuts

If aloof says that's the way they woud say it "around here" (her town, state, country?), I believe her. It doesn't matter if it makes or doesn't make sense; that's the way people say it. Period.


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## gengo

EddieZumac said:


> I disagree because that doesn't make sense.
> The correct answer, as christianmn said, is "thirteen billion nine hundred seventy-three million".



But that is exactly equal to "thirteen point nine seven three billion euros", as said by Aloofsocialite.  That is, 13,973,000,000 = 13.973 billion = thirteen billion nine hundred seventy-three million.

In the 19th century it was common in US English to say "thousand millions," but in modern US English this is never used, and we use "billion" instead.


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## k-in-sc

Culciambo said:


> That only applies for *E*nglish-speaking countries, *B*razilian *P*ortuguese, *G*reek and *T*urkish*,* among others.
> 
> For me as a *S*panish speaker, 1 billion refers to 10^12 or 1 000 000 000 000 or one million of millions.


The OP was in fact asking how to express it in English. Also, a million million is a trillion.



gengo said:


> But that is exactly equal to "thirteen point nine seven three billion euros", as said by Aloofsocialite.  That is, 13,973,000,000 = 13.973 billion = thirteen billion nine hundred seventy-three million.
> 
> In the 19th century it was common in US English to say "thousand millions," but in modern US English this is never used, and we use "billion" instead.


Agree with "thirteen point nine seven three billion" in everyday life, "thirteen billion nine hundred seventy-three million" in math class when kids are studying place value.


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## EddieZumac

aloofsocialite said:


> Oh, I was getting tripped up on the decimal. I see what you mean! But, for 13.17 (decimal not comma) million, I would never say 13 million 17 thousand, I would say thirteen point one-seven million.
> 
> My original post, given EddieZumac's correction, I would read as "thirteen billion, nine hundred and seventy three million euros."


Don't forget the hyphen in seventy-three.


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## aztlaniano

EddieZumac said:


> Example: for 13.17 million, you would say 13 million 17 thousand,
> not 13 point 17 million.


Au contraire - you_ would_ say 13 point one seven million. Or 13 million one hundred and seventy thousand.  13.17 = 13.170, not 13.017


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## k-in-sc

aztlaniano said:


> Au contraire - you_ would_ say 13 point one seven million. Or 13 million one hundred and seventy thousand.  13.17 = 13.170, not 13.017


Yep, the "thirteen point one seven" thing is a handy shortcut. Keeps you from messing up the place values, too 
Another one is that $1,200 = "twelve hundred dollars" instead of "one thousand two hundred dollars."


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## EddieZumac

k-in-sc said:


> Yep, the "thirteen point one seven" thing is a handy shortcut. Keeps you from messing up the place values, too
> Another one is that $1,200 = "twelve hundred dollars" instead of "one thousand two hundred dollars."


Yes, people say "twelve hundred dollars", but you wouldn't write that on a check.


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## gengo

EddieZumac said:


> Yes, people say "twelve hundred dollars", but you wouldn't write that on a check.



I do it all the time.  Why not?  It's a perfectly legitimate way to write out the amount.


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## EddieZumac

gengo said:


> I do it all the time.  Why not?  It's a perfectly legitimate way to write out the amount.


Your bank is accepting this as a common exception, but ask your branch manager if this is a correct way to write a check. I worked for a bank for 16 years, and I can tell you that it's not "perfectly legitimate".


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## gengo

EddieZumac said:


> Your bank is accepting this as a common exception, but ask your branch manager if this is a correct way to write a check. I worked for a bank for 16 years, and I can tell you that it's not "perfectly legitimate".



That would be unreasonable.  The purpose of spelling out the amount is to make it clear in case the numerals are illegible.  "Twelve hundred" is just as legitimate as "one thousand two hundred" in standard English.  What purpose would such a restriction serve?

Naturally, I can see the point of not allowing things like "one hundred twenty tens of dollars," because they aren't standard English.


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## Oldy Nuts

Eddie, as a non-native English speaker, I find it strange that a native English speaker such as you disagrees so much in this thread with at least four other "natives" ...


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## mikylin

Its only 13 billions in the US, the rest of the metric system world it would be 13 thousand millions; a 13 Billions for non-US is 13 000 000 000 000 . This has got many people confused. 

Reference needed?

http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/how-many-is-a-billion .


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## k-in-sc

It*'*s 13 billion in the U.S., not 13 billions.
We Americans are not confused


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## Oldy Nuts

mikylin, there are numerous previous discussions on the meaning of "billion" in different parts of the world. Here is one of the most recent: 

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2224811&highlight=billion


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## mikylin

k-in-sc said:


> It*'*s 13 billion in the U.S., not 13 billions.
> We Americans are not confused



I know, didn't mean it that way 




Oldy Nuts said:


> mikylin, there are numerous previous discussions on the meaning of "billion" in different parts of the world. Here is one of the most recent:
> 
> http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2224811&highlight=billion



Gracias por el dato!


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## EddieZumac

gengo said:


> That would be unreasonable.  The purpose of spelling out the amount is to make it clear in case the numerals are illegible.  "Twelve hundred" is just as legitimate as "one thousand two hundred" in standard English.  What purpose would such a restriction serve?
> 
> Naturally, I can see the point of not allowing things like "one hundred twenty tens of dollars," because they aren't standard English.


Well, gengo, I should know better than to argue with you.


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## gengo

EddieZumac said:


> Well, gengo, I should know better than to argue with you.



I wasn't trying to diminish your knowledge and experience.  I'm sure you know much better than I what banks do.  I was asking sincerely, since it makes no sense to me to impose such a restriction.


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## EddieZumac

gengo said:


> I wasn't trying to diminish your knowledge and experience.  I'm sure you know much better than I what banks do.  I was asking sincerely, since it makes no sense to me to impose such a restriction.


It's actually not a restriction. It's the proper, and only,  way of writing textual amounts on checks.

This issue has come up before. I suggest we bury the issue.


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## gengo

EddieZumac said:


> It's actually not a restriction. It's the proper, and only,  way of writing textual amounts on checks.



If there are two accepted ways to write a number in English, but banks only consider one of them to be proper and accepted, that, my friend, is a restriction.



> I suggest we bury the issue.



I will if you want to, but I enjoy learning new things, so I'd be happy if you could explain this to me.  You obviously know more about the field than I do, so I thought you might know the reason for the restriction, which seems very odd to me.


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## Oldy Nuts

EddieZumac said:


> It's actually not a restriction. It's the proper, and only,  way of writing textual amounts on checks.
> ...



Are you saying that American banks should refuse to pay cheques for $1,200 if the clients spelled this out as "twelve hundred" dollars? By the way, do they?


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## k-in-sc

I write my cheques checks that way too and I remember that years ago somebody did question it, probably some kind of cashier rather than a bank teller, but I didn't change it and I never had any problem with the checks being honored.


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## EddieZumac

gengo said:


> If there are two accepted ways to write a number in English, but banks only consider one of them to be proper and accepted, that, my friend, is a restriction.
> 
> 
> 
> I will if you want to, but I enjoy learning new things, so I'd be happy if you could explain this to me.  You obviously know more about the field than I do, so I thought you might know the reason for the restriction, which seems very odd to me.


I learned the rules when I was writing the computer program to issue cashier's checks. I no longer have a copy of the specifications. I have searched the internet for a matching rule to no avail.


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## k-in-sc

A check issued by a company would naturally be more formal than one written by an individual.


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## k-in-sc

k-in-sc said:


> I write my cheques checks that way too and I remember that years ago somebody did question it, probably some kind of cashier rather than a bank teller, but I didn't change it and I never had any problem with the checks being honored.


I was thinking about when I would have written checks for more than $1k (hardly ever) and realized that I misremembered the somewhat nonstandard way of writing a check that the clerk or teller remarked on. Actually it was putting "Exactly two hundred" instead of "Two hundred and no/100." Not that anybody cares, I just thought I would set the record straight.


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## Rondivu

k-in-sc said:


> I write my cheques checks that way too and I remember that years ago somebody did question it, probably some kind of cashier rather than a bank teller, but I didn't change it and I never had any problem with the checks being honored.



"Cheque" is used in BrE.


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## k-in-sc

But Oldy and I are Americans


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## Rondivu

But you crossed it out = wrong, incorrect


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## k-in-sc

Because in AmE it's "check" ... Is there an echo in here?


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## EddieZumac

gengo:
 I couldn´t find the rules for writing a textual amount on checks, but I did find this helpful example which converts an input amount to textual.
http://www.evinco-software.com/eng/toolNumber.php?num=1200&and=1


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## Oldy Nuts

To be true, I wouldn't expect any software to offer me choices on this, if there are choices. And, not being a native, it seems to me that both forms, "one thousand two hundred" and "twelve hundred" are very much used, both sides of the pond.

Incidentally, I find it amusing that the Evinco software writes "cheques", while k-in-sc and you write "checks". Perhaps because Evinco is based in Hong Kong? And couldn't this explain Evinco's preference for the "one thousand two hundred" form?


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## EddieZumac

Oldy Nuts said:


> To be true, I wouldn't expect any software to offer me choices on this, if there are choices. And, not being a native, it seems to me that both forms, "one thousand two hundred" and "twelve hundred" are very much used, both sides of the pond.
> 
> Incidentally, I find it amusing that the Evinco software writes "cheques", while k-in-sc and you write "checks". Perhaps because Evinco is based in Hong Kong? And couldn't this explain Evinco's preference for the "one thousand two hundred" form?


OK, here's a similar software tool by About.com. I assume that About.com is from the USA.
http://banking.about.com/library/bl_write_out_numbers.htm


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## k-in-sc

EddieZumac said:


> OK, here's a similar software tool by About.com. I assume that About.com is from the USA.
> http://banking.about.com/library/bl_write_out_numbers.htm


Looks like that program was written by a JavaScript guy from Australia. I don't think you have to be from the U.S. to post to About.com.


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## Oldy Nuts

Eddie, following your link, I read this:


> Avoid informal ways of saying things.  Write "one thousand two hundred" instead of "twelve hundred"



For me, asking people to "avoid" writing "twelve hundred" is not the same than what you wrote before:


> It's the proper, and only,  way of writing textual amounts on checks.


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## gengo

Oldy Nuts said:


> For me, asking people to "avoid" writing "twelve hundred" is not the same as what you wrote before:



Nor does it explain the reason for this injunction.  I really fail to see the logic behind it.  Furthermore, I don't really think of "twelve hundred" as being informal at all.  Just another way to say the same thing.

Eddie, note that I'm not saying you are wrong about what banks prefer, just that it makes no sense to me.


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## EddieZumac

gengo said:


> Nor does it explain the reason for this injunction.  I really fail to see the logic behind it.  Furthermore, I don't really think of "twelve hundred" as being informal at all.  Just another way to say the same thing.
> 
> Eddie, note that I'm not saying you are wrong about what banks prefer, just that it makes no sense to me.


Gengo: I've thought about this for quite a while. Here's what I was able to come up with.

1. You take the numeric amount and divide it into sets of 3 digits max.
The numeric amount of 101,505.600
would occupy the 3 sets as 101 505 600
Then you process the sets from left to right, which gives us
One hundred one million five hundred five thousand six hundred.

2. Note that when processing sets, the left-most set (in this example) is millions, then the second set is thousands and the last set is units.

3. Another example is 1000045, which when divided into 3 sets gives 10 000 45.
After processing the sets we get Ten million, forty-five.
Note that there is nothing in the thousands set.

Now, working with the famous numeric amount of 1200.
Divided into sets we get 2 sets having 1 200
which gives us One thousand two hundred.
The case of Twelve hundred does not exist because no set has 12.

Hope your understood my meager attempt of explaining this.


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## Oldy Nuts

???? I think I'm not following you. What happened with the decimals (666, after the decimal point in the first figure)?


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## EddieZumac

Oldy Nuts said:


> ???? I think I'm not following you. What happened with the decimals (666, after the decimal point in the first figure)?


I had an error so I changed the numbers. Sorry.
Please read my examples again.


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## gengo

EddieZumac said:


> Hope [you] understood my meager attempt of explaining this.



Yes, I think so.  But since the purpose of spelling out the amount is to make it clear in case the numerals are illegible, I still see no valid reason not to use the "twelve hundred" format for applicable amounts.

Anyway, this is probably as far as we can go with this here.  Thanks for taking time to explain your thoughts.

Saludos


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## Oldy Nuts

Yes, despite the misterious changing from decimals to integers, I still cannot understand your point. If you want a machine writing cheques, then yes, your procedure in faultless. But, as I understand things, we are dealing here with people -not machines- writing cheques. And as I understand from messages in this thread, and also from posts in other threads, for normal American people speaking their own language, and even for many Britons , "one thousand two hundreds" is completely equivalent to "twelve hundred". And, from my point of view, as long as there are real people who receive the cheques, this difference is meaningless: the are both the same amount.

Incidentally, I understand that it's child's play for programmers to program a "cheque reading machine" to accept both forms of writing in words the amount "1,200".


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## gengo

Oldy Nuts said:


> Yes, despite the misterious changing from decimals to integers



I'm pretty sure Eddie just made a typo, and wrote 101,505.600 instead of 101,505,600.  The rest of his post corroborates that theory.


> one thousand two hundreds



Note that numbers in this context never take the plural, so it should be "two hundred."


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## EddieZumac

Thanks gengo and Oldy Nuts for taking the time to try to understand my procedure.


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## gengo

EddieZumac said:


> Thanks gengo and Oldy Nuts for taking the time to try to understand my procedure,



Not at all.  I always enjoy your posts, and am glad to share in your experience.


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## EddieZumac

gengo: without burdening the issue (and you), I would like to point out that there are other numbers which fall into the same category as 1200, such as:
1100
2300
3400
etc.
*Using the procedure for gathering the numbers into sets of three digits*,
gives us:
One thousand one hundred ... not Eleven hundred
Two thousand three hundred ... not Twenty-three hundred
Three thousand four hundred ... not Thirty-four hundred

One more example:
1234
gives us One thousand two hundred thirty-four ... not Twelve hundred thirty-four

Q.E.D.

Best regards..... Eddie


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## Oldy Nuts

Thanks, gengo, for your brave attempts at correcting my English, but I am afraid they come a bit late... Very old habits are hard to die.


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## Oldy Nuts

Eddie, I am amazed that no mod has noticed how far off topic we have gone. The worst part is that, in my opinión, we are beginning to repeat the same arguments, so we are not only wasting bandwidth, but also our time. And the time of others.

Time to leave -I think.


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## megamanx5

millones de euros  probably the same thing  i don't know


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## EddieZumac

Oldy Nuts said:


> Eddie, I am amazed that no mod has noticed how far off topic we have gone. The worst part is that, in my opinión, we are beginning to repeat the same arguments, so we are not only wasting bandwidth, but also our time. And the time of others.
> 
> Time to leave -I think.


Yes, time to leave this issue, and I'm sorry if I wasted your time.


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## Oldy Nuts

Eddie, I made my suggestion when I felt I was beginning to waste my time...


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