IELTS Preparation Series 1, Episode 22: Finance

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Hello. I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to another episode of Study English, IELTS preparation.

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Today we're going to listen to a finance report. It's filled with numbers and amounts, expressed

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in a variety of ways.

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It's important to be able to understand and describe numerical data using decimals, fractions

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and currencies.

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Listen to the day's finance report.

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The Australian dollar, today Tuesday the 11th of November, continues to rise against the

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US dollar, buying just over 70 cents, a 15 year high.

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Against other currencies, however, the trend is a little different, falling against the

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pound, closing at 0.425, a slight drop on yesterday, and 0.61 euros. The yen is also

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strengthening at 71.95, and considerably higher against the greenback at 111.03 yen.

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The Dow Jones Index closed today at 9809.79, a fall of 47.18 on yesterday's trading.

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The Sydney Stock Market doubled its trading yesterday with BHP Billiton trading heavily.

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The latest retail figures showed that turnover grew by 3.2% in the June quarter, the fastest

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quarterly growth rate for five and a half years. At the same time, unemployment fell

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to its lowest level in twelve and a half years.

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OK, first we're going to look at decimals, and how you express them. Listen carefully

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again.

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Against other currencies, however, the trend is a little different, falling against the

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pound, closing at 0.425, a slight drop on yesterday, and 0.61 euros. The yen is also

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strengthening at 71.95, and considerably higher against the greenback at 111.03 yen.

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The Dow Jones Index closed today at 9809.79, a fall of 47.18 on yesterday's trading.

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In English, decimals are written with a point, not a comma.

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So we write 4.25, 6.1.

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When you say the numbers after the decimal point, you say them all separately, as individual

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numbers.

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So we have:

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seventy one point nine five

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forty seven point one eight

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nine thousand eight hundred and nine point seven nine

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Notice that a zero is often spoken as 'oh'.

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Practice saying these numbers:

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three hundred and twenty six point oh one

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four point eight nine seven

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nine hundred and two point three oh eight

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Listen again:

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Against other currencies, however, the trend is a little different, falling against the

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pound, closing at 0.425, a slight drop on yesterday, and 0.61 euros. The yen is also

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strengthening at 71.95, and considerably higher against the greenback at 111.03 yen.

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The Dow Jones Index closed today at 9809.79, a fall of 47.18 on yesterday's trading.

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The Sydney Stock Market doubled its trading yesterday with BHP Billiton trading heavily.

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You can hear that when using numbers, there are often alternatives, and many choices you

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can make.

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So conversationally, we would usually say one hundred and eleven point oh three, but

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will also often hear one hundred and eleven point zero three.

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Here, we could say: zero point four two five

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nought point four two five or even just point four two five

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Notice that in North America, people usually say zero, not nought or 'oh'.

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OK, now the other way of expressing numbers less than one is using fractions.

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Listen to the fractions here.

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The latest retail figures showed that turnover grew by 3.2% in the June quarter, the fastest

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quarterly growth rate for five and a half years. At the same time, unemployment fell

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to its lowest level in twelve and a half years.

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She uses the most common fraction - a half.

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Listen to how we say common fractions:

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a half

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a third

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a quarter

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two thirds

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five eights

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three quarters

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Notice that once you understand the pattern, you can express any fraction you want.

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Try these:

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seven eighteenths

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16 thirtieths

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14 fortieths

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OK, now listen again to some of the report. Listen for different currencies:

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Against other currencies, however, the trend is a little different, falling against the

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pound, closing at 0.425, a slight drop on yesterday, and 0.61 euros. The yen is also

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strengthening at 71.95, and considerably higher against the greenback at 111.03 yen.

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There were a number of different currencies mentioned in that clip:

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the pound; the euro; the yen; the greenback.

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Let's have a look at them.

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Lots of countries use a dollar.

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In Australia, the Australian dollar is usually expressed with the dollar sign.

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But internationally, it's written like this AUD. We read this the Australian dollar.

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In United States, they use the dollar as well. It's the USD, the United States dollar. But

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often called the greenback, because it's green.

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In Great Britain they use the pound. It is written GBP, but it's often called the pound

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sterling.

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In the European Union, they use the euro dollar, written like this - EUR.

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In Japan, it's the yen, written JPY.

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In China, it's the yuan, written CNY, and the renminbi, RMB.

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Notice that we write the currency before the number, but we say it after the number.

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So we read:

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two dollars.

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or four pounds fifteen.

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Notice also how we read longer numbers:

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three thousand, four hundred and seventy Japanese yen

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one hundred and ninety two Australian dollars

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Notice that when spoken naturally the one often becomes 'a' and the 'and' becomes squashed.

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We don't say one hundred and ninety two but a hundred n ninety two.

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Try this one:

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a hundred and twenty seven thousand, three hundred and twenty two Hong Kong dollars

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OK, now let's listen to the report again, and then we'll look at another important use

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of numbers.

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The Australian dollar, today Tuesday the 11th of November, continues to rise against the

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US dollar, buying just over 70 cents, a 15 year high.

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Notice that she says Tuesday the 11th of November.

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Saying simple things like the date can be confusing in English, as the way they're said

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varies.

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In Australia, we say the 11th of November, or November the 11th. Notice that it's written

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without the words 'the', or 'of'.

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For the 13th of February 2005, Australians would write this: 13.05.2005.

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But in North America, they'd write it: 02.13.2005.

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You'll need to learn these to make sure you don't turn up somewhere on the wrong day!

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So remember that in Australia they write the date: day dot month dot year,

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but in North America, they write: month dot day dot year.

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And there is an international standard that says the format should be: year dot month

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dot day.

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With numbers, dates, times, there are all sorts of variations. Just make sure you understand

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the currency, the time and the date, or you could find yourself in all sorts of trouble!

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And I'll see you soon for more Study English!

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Bye bye.

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