English Listening: Correctly Expressing Dollar Amounts and Common Currency Usage

Listen to this short conversation. Pay attention to the way they state the dollar amount. Do you have a dollar? Sorry, I only have a $5 bill. Have you ever wondered when people say a dollar and when they say one dollar? The answer is that we almost never say one dollar because it's not necessary. Ah, means one. And then did you hear the man say dollar or dollars? He said dollar because in this case it's an adjective. I'll show you some more examples of this.

The sentence I have $10 is stating an amount of money and dollars is a plural noun. I have a $10 bill is talking about the paper currency, the bill. So $10 is being used as an adjective. And in English adjectives are not plural. Here are some other examples. This candy bar weighs three ounces. It's a three ounce candy bar. The trip takes three hours. It's a three hour trip.

Okay, just a couple of additional tips when you're talking about dollars and cents. A dollar. A dollar twenty-five. A dollar fifty. We can also say a quarter or a half. We say and very quickly. And it links with the next word ah, so it sounds like enna. A dollar and a quarter. A dollar and a half. If you have larger amounts, you say it a bit differently. Maybe that's why we usually only say a quarter or a half with a dollar, not with larger amounts. Instead we say two dollars and fifty cents.

So to review, here are several ways to express dollars. The end is optional. Sometimes people get confused because both percentages and dollars have decimal points. But they're stated differently. We say point in percentages and we read each digit. If there's a zero, we say zero or o. Practice saying these amounts. Then listen. There may be more than one possibility. A dollar. A dollar fifty. A dollar and a half. Four fifty. Four dollars and fifty cents. Ten fifty. Ten dollars and fifty cents. A hundred dollars. A hundred and twenty five dollars. One point two five percent. Forty percent. Six point two percent.

So far, I've been talking about expressing money amounts in dollars. But of course, you need to talk about other currencies. Here are some other typical expressions that you might need for business or travel. US dollar is worth one point three eight Canadian right now. The end is high against the dollar. The currency rate is favorable to travel in China because the Remmin B is weak compared to the dollar. Right now, the strong currency is hurting exports.