英语听力精选进阶版 7944（在线收听）

This week's question comes from Li Bin in Beijing, who has problems understanding amounts of money in English.

There are a number of different reasons why Chinese learners of English might have problems understanding amounts of money.

1) Big numbers

The counting system in English is different to Chinese. Big numbers like million and billion have no direct equivalent in Chinese so when talking about numbers like 2.2 billion (2,200,000,000) it means you might need to do a little mental arithmetic.

2) Costs and prices

In Britain costs and prices are expressed in pounds and pence. For example, a meal in a restaurant might cost ￡7.70. When this is written there is no problem, but when you hear someone say this price you might hear one of three things:

a) Seven pounds seventy pence

b) Seven pounds seventy

c) Seven seventy

Make sure you don't confuse seven seventy with 770 (seven hundred and seventy).

3) Slang

Are you familiar with these slang expressions?

A quid – one pound

A fiver – five pounds

A tenner – ten pounds

A grand – 1,000 pounds

A buck – one dollar

Dough, cash, moolah – all these are slang terms for money.

Glossary 词汇

million

一百万

billion

十亿

equivalent

相同（的词）

mental arithmetic

心算，默算

pound

英镑

pence

便士

slang