金融英语--金融英语课程电子版教材

时间：2025-04-04

金融英语讲义

Unit1 Money

Figures

American oil billionaire J. Paul Getty has a very famous saying, that is ―If you can actually count your money, then you are not really a rich man.‖ 美国的银行业大亨J. Paul Getty曾经说过一句话：如果你的钱是可以数得清楚的，那么你就不是一个真正的富人。Well, the sentence is interesting, but actually we must know how to count the money before we get rich, especially in English. So, in today‘s class, we would first learn to say English numbers.

Most people working in finance, whether it is in accountancy, banking, broking, investment, insurance, or whatever, spend a lot of time dealing with numbers.

I. Let‘s talk about the different ways to say 0 in English. Usually, we have the following 5 ways to say 0 in English. They are: OH, ZERO, LOVE, NOUGHT, and NIL!

We say oh

after a decimal point 6.03 six point oh three

in telephone numbers 84 08 32 13 eight four oh eight three two one three in bus numbers No. 708 get the seven oh eight

in hotel room numbers Room 308 I'm in room three oh eight.

in years 1905 nineteen oh five

We say nought

before the decimal point 0.201 nought point two oh one

We say zero

for the number 0 the number zero

for temperature -5~C five degrees below zero

We say nil

in football scores 5-0 Spain won five nil.

We say love

in tennis 15- 0 The score is fifteen love.

Now say the following:

1. The exact figure is 0.002.

a) before the decimal point, read nought;

b) after a decimal point, read oh.

Nought point oh oh two.

2. Can you get back to me on 010 – 5175 – 0123 ? I'll be here all morning.

in telephone numbers, say oh.

Oh one oh five one seven five oh one two three

3. Can you put that on my bill? I'm in room 804.

in hotel room numbers, say oh. Eight oh four

4. The temperature in north-east China is very low in winter. Usually, it's 20 degrees below 0!

for temperature, say zero.

5. Basically, tennis scoring proceeds from 0 to 15 to 30 to 40 to game.

love（0）, fifteen（15）, thirty（30）, forty（40）, game（胜局）。

6. The result of the game was 3 – 0

three-nil

II. THE DECIMAL POINT

In English, we use a point (.) and not a comma (,) for decimals. 在英语当中，小数点都是写为一个点，而不是逗号。We use commas in figures only when writing thousands. 我们在表达数字千的时候呢，用逗号来隔开。

10,002 is ten thousand and two.

10.003 is ten point oh oh three

In English all the numbers after a decimal point are read separately. For example:

20.66 twenty point six six Not twenty point sixty six

0.243 nought point two four three

0.005 nought point oh oh five

You will also bear people say:

0.05 zero point oh five or oh point oh five

But if the number after the decimal point is a unit of money, it is read like a normal number: ￡12.50 twelve pounds fifty €5.95 five Euros ninety five

NB. This is very important. When you do business on the phone, say nought point three seven five (0.375) and not nought point three hundred and seventy five. If the listener missed the word point, you might lose a lot of money. So, say the digits separately after the point.

Now say the following:

1. It's somewhere between 3.488 and 3.491.

2. Look, it's less than 0.0001! It's hardly worth worrying about.

3. I changed all those yen into sterling and I only got ￡13.60!

Yen is the standard unit of money in Japan,

Sterling is the standard unit of money in the United Kingdom,

(yen 是日本的货币单位，sterling是英国的标准货币单位)

4. That's about 14.50 in Swiss francs. （瑞士法郎）

5. Did you say 0.225 or 0.229?

6. The dollar is at 1.95. （one point nighty five）

7. No, I meant 15.005 not 15,005.

Say: No, I meant fifteen point oh oh 5, not fifteen thousand and five