TRANSCRIPT

EPISODE 16: LISTENING FOR NUMBERS

Hello, and welcome to Study English, IELTS Preparation. I'm Margot Politis.
In the Listening Module of the IELTS Test you can expect to be asked questions
about numbers.
So it's important to be familiar with how we talk about numbers.
First, listen to the numbers in this clip about a wind farm in Tasmania:
Each tower that you can see can generate enough power for between seven and
eight hundred houses.
"between seven hundred and eight hundred houses".
When numbers are exact or a clear approximation such as 'between seven hundred
and eight hundred', the word 'hundred' has no final 's'. The plural is formed by the
following noun: 'between seven hundred and eight hundred houses'.
For an exact figure you say: seven hundred houses.
You can use a preposition to be less exact and say: over seven hundred houses;
around seven hundred houses; about seven hundred houses; nearly seven
hundred houses or under seven hundred houses.
When we state a number, such as seven hundred or eight thousand there is no 's'
after the unit four hundred, ten thousand, or five million.
So when do we add 's' to these words?
Listen to the man in the next clip use 'hundreds' to describe the slow change from
one type of forest to another:
There have probably been three lots of logging since white settlement in the 1860s.
In time, that eucalyptus forest will gradually go back to rainforest, but that takes
hundreds of years.
'Hundreds of years'. There is no number; it's just more than one. Notice we add 'of'
before the noun 'years' Hundreds of years.
So listen carefully. 'Thousands of' and 'millions of' are not exact numbers. They're
guesses or rough figures.
He also said the 1860s. This means any year from 1860 to 1869.
In the next clip about Angkor Wat in Cambodia, the speaker doesn't use the final 's'.
Angkor is one of the most popular World Heritage sites in the whole of Asia. Every
year now there are over one million tourists coming to Angkor.

Page 1 of 4

By saying 'over one million tourists', he means more than one million but much
less than 2 million. If the figure were closer to two million, he would probably say
'nearly two million tourists'
But if he'd said millions of tourists, he would mean more than 2 million.
Instead of saying one million you can also say a million. It means the same thing.
Listen to this woodchopper talking about how many titles he's won:
I've won one hundred and eighty three world titles I suppose, the only person in
sporting history to ever win over a thousand championships so I suppose it hasn't
been too bad of a life.
'Over a thousand championships'. He could have said one thousand or a
thousand. And he could have said a hundred and eighty three. Notice that 'and'
is used to add numbers below a hundred he says one hundred and eighty three.
You also say a thousand and 83 (1,083) and a million and 83 (1,000,083). But you
say one thousand, one hundred and 83 (1,183) or one million, one thousand and 83
(1,001,083).
When you're talking about where something occurs in a sequence, you use ordinal
numbers such as first, second, third, fourth.
Ordinal numbers are used in dates, as in this clip in which the speaker is talking
about a major art exhibition held in 2006.
The Biennale of Sydney this year is the 15th. It occurs every two years, as all
biennales do and this year starts on the 8th of June.
He says 'the fifteenth'. He means the fifteenth Sydney Biennale exhibition. There
have been 14 held before this one. The date is the eighth of June. This date can be
expressed like this:
June eighth
June the eighth
Now listen for another use of an ordinal number in this clip about an art course held
in an art gallery:
So if we're looking at one of the paintings in this gallery in European art, where we're
looking at 19th-century paintings, we're talking about the paintings as they appear in
the gallery spaces.
She says: '19th century paintings'.
Ordinal numbers are used for centuries and are often written in numbers like this:
19th
Of course, this refers to the 1800s, again usually written as a number: the 1800s.
So what do you call the present century?

Page 2 of 4

I think that the strongest mark of 21st century culture is artists taking from every
possible place to realise their visions.
He says: '21st century culture'. The suffix 's-t' is used after 1 to represent the last 2
letters of 'first'.
Ordinal numbers are also used to refer to fractions.
You have the special fraction terms - half, third and quarter, but all other forms use
ordinal numbers as in this clip about the wind farm:
Six towers were erected in that time; these have the potential of generating one fifth
of Tasmania's power needs from wind energy.
'One fifth of Tasmania's power needs'.
Plural fractions take a plural form, for example: two fifths. Fractions are followed by
'of': one fifth of. And a noun group which refers to the whole: one fifth of
Tasmania's power needs.
Another type of fraction is percentage. For example, 'one-quarter' (1/4) can be
expressed as 25%.
Let's listen for the percentage used in this clip about an oyster farm:
It takes approximately 2 to 2 and a half years to get the oysters up to size and sold to
the market. From this farm we've averaged about 15% of the market for export and
that goes to Hong Kong and Japan.
'fifteen percent of the market'.
Percentages have the same structure as fractions, 'of' and a noun group: Fifteen
percent of the market for export.
Yet another way of talking about parts of numbers is decimals.
Listen to how they're used in talking about wind turbines:
It's quite a large structure. 1.75 megawatts generated by each unit.
'1.75 megawatts'.
Electrical power is measured in 'watts'. One megawatt is one million watts.
You say one point seven five, but write it in numbers with a decimal point: 1.75.
A decimal is usually followed by a plural noun: '1.75 megawatts'
Now let's listen to a furniture maker talk about the thickness of the veneer, or layer of
wood he puts on his furniture. Is his veneer thicker than the old fashioned sort?

Page 3 of 4

Today we're using sophisticated ways of putting our construction of our furniture. We
use a lot of veneers and those veneers aren't the old-fashioned .06 of a mil, they're
about a 6 mil veneer and they're laid up on MDF and they have a solid frame.
His veneers 'aren't the old-fashioned .06 of a mil'. They're 'about a 6 mil veneer'.
They're much thicker.
'Point 06 of a mil' is a decimal figure. It's less than one. Mil is short for millimetre.
Notice that he says it like a fraction - point 06 of a mil.
Usually you say point 06, although you will sometimes hear point zero six.
That's all for today.
For more practice listening to the way numbers are expressed, go to our website.
The address is: australianetwork.com/studyenglish.
Good Luck with your studies.

Page 4 of 4