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Representation of numbers

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Paskwc
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 Message 1 of 6
05 March 2010 at 8:48am | IP Logged 
I'm hoping someone can clarify something for me. I'm reading a German website and am
having a little trouble with understanding some numbers.

Am I correct to assume the following:
$17.500 (German) = $17,500 (English)
$176,36 (German) = $176.36 (English)

Thanks.
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Sprachprofi
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 Message 2 of 6
05 March 2010 at 9:01am | IP Logged 
Indeed. German uses . to separate thousands and millions and , to separate fractions.

€ 16.346.388.359,68
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jeff_lindqvist
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 Message 3 of 6
05 March 2010 at 6:37pm | IP Logged 
I think the only reasonable meaning of a number ending with a two-digit group would be a fraction, and a three-digit group quite a large number (larger than one thousand). I mean, nobody would mistake thinking that $17,500 is seventeen dollars and five-hundred... "millidollars"... In Sweden it's customary to insert spaces between each three-digit group, and comma before fractions, e.g. 1 609 000 (one million six-hundred and nine thousand), 2,5 hours (two and a half hours).
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Sprachprofi
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 Message 4 of 6
05 March 2010 at 6:45pm | IP Logged 
Yeah, inserting spaces is an alternative in Germany, but dots are much more common.

I would be careful not to assume too much by the amount of grouped digits though, because
e. g. Mandarin creates groups of four for high numbers, in keeping with their counting
system which is based on ten thousands rather than thousands.
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MäcØSŸ
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 Message 5 of 6
05 March 2010 at 7:58pm | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:
Yeah, inserting spaces is an alternative in Germany, but dots are much more common.

I would be careful not to assume too much by the amount of grouped digits though, because
e. g. Mandarin creates groups of four for high numbers, in keeping with their counting
system which is based on ten thousands rather than thousands.


Indian languages use groups of two digits, after the first three (like 1,00,00,000 which is called “a crore”).
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Johntm
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 Message 6 of 6
06 March 2010 at 7:35am | IP Logged 
Sprachprofi wrote:
Indeed. German uses . to separate thousands and millions and , to separate fractions.

€ 16.346.388.359,68
Spanish (at least the Latin American variety) does the same, and it's so weird to get used to. But if it has two digits after the , its obviously a decimal.


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