# Decimals



## airelibre

How do we say, for example, 13.8 billion years? How should it be said? How do most people say it?
שלושה עשרה נקודה שמונה (shmona) מיליארד שנה?


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## Drink

To add to the question, are decimals indicated with dots or commas?


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## tFighterPilot

airelibre said:


> How do we say, for example, 13.8 billion years? How should it be said? How do most people say it?
> שלושה עשרה נקודה שמונה (shmona) מיליארד שנה?


Exactly like this, except שנה is feminine, so it would be shlosh esre nekuda shmone milyard shana. Also, the masculine form is shlosha asar.


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## airelibre

Ah, I thought it was shlosha asara. Is asara simply "a ten", like "a dozen"? Ie tens of people: עשרות אנשים?
Also, so the number agrees with the thing rather than מיליארד (which is masculine)? For some reason I was not thinking of מיליארד as part of the number but something like 13.8 billions (of) years.

What about something which is masculine? Same rules? Would it be femenine numbers in colloquial speech?
שלושה עשר נקודה שמונה (shmona) מיליארד כוכבים/שלוש עשרה נקודה שמונה  (shmone) מיליארד כוכבים 
And would it be simply כוכב? I know with big numbers the singular is used, but it doesn't sound right to me here.

Sorry about all the questions, I hope you manage to answer all of them.

And good question Drink, I think they follow the English system here (ie. period/full stop instead of comma), even though they follow the European system of million/milliard/billion.


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## anipo

I agree with what airelibre thought. It should be in masculine since you are referring to the billions and not the years.

It is as when you say ארבעת אלפים לירות, even if לירות is femenine. Or ארבע מאות שקלים, even if שקל is masculine. 

And about commas and periods: decimals come after a dot, while commas separate thousands, millions, etc.: 1,300,123.23 shekels (one million three hundred thousands one hundred and twenty three shekels and 23 agorot (agora= 1/100 shekel).


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## berndf

tFighterPilot said:


> Exactly like this, except שנה is feminine, so it would be shlosh esre nekuda shmone milyard shana. Also, the masculine form is shlosha asar.


By which rule do you say שנה rather then שנים (as in שלוש שנים)? Because of מיליארד or because 13.8 is a broken number?


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## Haskol

I would like to add that numbers to the right of the decimal dot are always feminine, because they are pure numbers and not describing anything. (or maybe because what they describe, i.e. tenths, thousandths etc. are all feminine...)


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## origumi

tFighterPilot said:


> Exactly like this, except שנה is feminine, so it would be shlosh esre nekuda shmone milyard shana. Also, the masculine form is shlosha asar.


Humm... no, the thing counted here is milyard, masculine. So: shlosha `asar nekuda shmone(?) milyard shanim.

 Why shmone (feminine) and not shmona (masculine) while the number is masculine? Because it sounds too weird, and I guess shmone counts `asiriyyot, which are feminine. (ADDED: I see that Haskol referred already to this issue).

למתלבטים אם לומר 'עשרים *וחמש* אלף דירות' או 'עשרים *וחמישה* אלף דירות' וכדומה נאמר: המספר 25 מונה את האלפים, ומכיוון שהמילה 'אלף' מינה זכר, יש לומר 'עשרים *וחמישה* אלף' ואין זה משנה מה מינו של השם הנמנה. כך גם 'מאה *וחמישה* אלף מכוניות'. הוא הדין למיליון, למיליארד וכדומה: '*חמישה עשר* מיליון לירות סטרלינג'.
http://hebrew-academy.org.il/2012/05/שם-המספר-רקע-להחלטות-האקדמיה/


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## origumi

berndf said:


> By which rule do you say שנה rather then שנים (as in שלוש שנים)? Because of מיליארד or because 13.8 is a broken number?


In the Bible we find שנה instead of שנים in certain cases, modern Hebrew follows the Bible in this regard. This is typical to several specific words, and also to foreign measurement unit.

שם העצם בא ברבים אחרי שם המספר עד עשר ועד בכלל, למשל 'שלושה  שקלים' (ולא "שלושה שקל"), 'חמישה אחוזים' (ולא "חמישה אחוז"), 'תשעה  אנשים', 'עשרה ימים'. אחרי מספרים שמעל עשר אפשר לנקוט שם עצם ביחיד או  ברבים: "בשבעים נפש ירדו אבותיך מצרימה" (דברים י, כב), 'עשרים שנה' או  'עשרים שנים', 'חמישים ושלושה שקל' או 'חמישים ושלושה שקלים'.
השימוש בלשון יחיד נפוץ יותר בשמות הנספרים תדיר, כגון 'יום', 'שנה',  'נפש', 'איש', 'ראש', 'אחוז', וכן בשמות מטבעות וכדומה. בשמות רבים אחרים  אין מקובל להשתמש בצורת היחיד. למשל, לא סביר שמישהו יאמר 'הוזמנו מאתיים  מחשב ושלושים מזגן לבניין החדש'.
לעומת זאת שמות לועזיים המציינים מידות ומשקלות יכולים לבוא ביחיד גם לאחר  המספרים 2­–10, כגון 'שני מטר', 'שלושה קילוגרם', 'שבעה דונם', 'ארבעה  דולר'.
http://hebrew-academy.org.il/2010/07/עשרים-שקל-או-עשרים-שקלים/


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## airelibre

Ok, thank you for that. 

Now now just a question about plural/singular of the noun for big numbers.

I notice you wrote 13.8 מיליארד כוכבים, and that is what I would think is natural. With other words, eg שנה, it seems that the singular is preferred for numbers greater than ten. Is there any rule about this, or is it just certain words that receive singular? 
Is the pattern clear in Biblical Hebrew? I'm wondering if we can extrapolate this habit of singular with large numbers back to Proto-Semitic, as Arabic had this pattern I believe, and in my experience it seems more common in biblical than modern Hebrew.

Edit: I see you have answered most of this question while I was typing, if you could clear up the rest, that would be great.


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## bazq

I don't know if it's preferred with certain words, but this is definitely the case with שנה, איש (though you can also use their plural form) and maybe some others that I'm forgetting.
It's definitely loose in slang where everything can be singular, I remember when I worked at a video game store and as we casually counted the inventory we would say:
"50 shalat playstation"
"100 cabel HDMI"
and so on...

I can't say it's the norm, but it doesn't sound ungrammatical. To be on the safe side, just use the plural. I can try to learn more about this phenomena if you're interested in this subject academically (for your personal knowledge, not necessarily "university-wise").


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## airelibre

Thanks for that bazq and thanks for the offer, but I won't trouble you with that. I'm happy enough with what I've learnt from this thread and I'll simply be paying attention to what I hear when people talk numbers.


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## berndf

Thank you for the replies (to my #6).


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