HOW TO SAY ZERO IN ENGLISH?

(Taken from "The World is Your Oyster")

Posted on April 9, 2013

To most of my Business English clients, how to say zero in English is very important to avoid misunderstandings, especially on the telephone or in video conferences. As a non-native speaker, you might say the figure zero as a plain zero which is absolutely fine, but often an English native speaker will use a number of ways to say zero depending on where they are from. So understanding what they mean is important.

Consequently, I often find myself dedicating part of a Business English lesson on the different ways the English Language has of saying this apparently simple figure.

In this blog post, I’m going to consider the British English (BrE) and American (AmE) versions. I’d be very interested to know if there are any other versions in other parts of the English-speaking world.

0 is zero and in British English, it’s sometimes known as nought.

In telephone numbers, room numbers, bus numbers and dates (years), we say oh.

Here are some examples:

• The meeting is in Room 502 (five oh two)
• You need to take Bus 205 (two oh five)
• She was born in 1907 (nineteen oh seven)
• My telephone number is 07781 020 560 (oh double seven eight one oh two oh five six oh OR zero seven seven eight one zero two zero five six zero)

For football scores we say nil: ‘The score was three nil (3-0) to Barcelona’.

American English uses various words for sports scores: The Yankees are winning three nothing/ three zero/ three zip.
For tennis scores we say love: ‘The score was thirty love. (30-0)

For temperatures we say zero: ‘It’s zero degrees celsius today (0°)

The decimal point (Notice that in English we say decimal point, and not a dot as in internet addresses). In British English, zero and nought are used before and after a decimal point. American English doesnot use nought.

Oh can be used after the decimal point.
Here are some examples:

• 0.05       zero point zero five OR nought point nought five
• 0.5%      zero point five percent OR nought point five percent.
• 0.501     zero point five zero one OR nought point five nought one OR           nought/zero point five oh one

Confused? Don’t be. Like everything in this world, practice makes perfect. The more you use figures in English in your job, the more comfortable you’ll be saying them.

Over to you now.  Try saying the following:

1. Can I have my bill please? I’m in Room 204.
2. The exact figure is 0.002.
3. Can you get back to me on 0208 775 3001.
4. Look, it’s less than 0.0001! Let’s not worry about it.
5. 0.75% won’t make a lot of difference.

What do you find the hardest when saying zero in English?

THE INFAMOUS "-S" (3rd person singular present, possessive, plural & contractions)

[Infographic from  Grammar.net]
Spelling of 3rd person singular present simple:

Spelling of the 'S genitive:

RAFAEL DIESTE'S 2013 STUDENT GRADUATION

Once again, another course has ended for 2nd BAC students. They had their farewell graduation party last night. As this year's 2nd BAC groups had so many students, the ceremony was held at our nearby neighbour's Andrés Gaos Auditorium within the Superior Music Conservatory. Later a cold buffet was served at the main hall of our school for students, their families and teachers.
Good luck to them all in their new future!

Their videos:

IMPROVING YOUR WRITINGS: CONNECTORS

Here are charts collecting connectors, adverbs and expressions you can use to improve your writings.

HOW TO EXPRESS FUTURE

Here are charts that summarise how you can express future in English.

Future certainty versus possibility:

BRITISH ACCENTS

In Spanish an Andalusian doesn't pronunce it as a Galician or a Madrilenian, Basque or Catalan... The same happens to English in Britain, accents change from county to county, city to city, even in the same city... Here are some videos which show some of the differences of pronunciation of English in Britain.

Video:

Video Canadian accent:

SOME PHRASAL VERBS & VERBS + PREPOSITIONS

"THE WAY" (Film of the IV Cultural Week)

"Rafael Dieste" IV Cultural Week ends today showing the film "The Way".

The Way is a 2010 American drama film. It is a collaboration between Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Estevez to honor the Camino de Santiago and promote the traditional pilgrimage.

Thomas Avery is an American ophthalmologist who goes to France following the death of his adult son, killed in the Pyrenees during a storm while walking the Camino de Santiago (the Way of St. James), a Catholic pilgrimage route to the Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain. Tom's purpose is initially to retrieve his son's body. However, in a combination of grief and homage to his son, Tom decides to walk the ancient spiritual trail where his son died.

While walking the Camino, Tom meets others from around the world, all looking for greater meaning in their lives. He reluctantly falls in with three other pilgrims in particular. Joost (Yorick van Wageningen) is an overweight man from Amsterdam who says he is walking the route to lose weight to get ready for his brother's wedding and so that his wife will desire him again. He is a warm extrovert who is the first to start walking with Tom. Sarah (Deborah Kara Unger) is a Canadian fleeing an abusive husband, who says she is walking the pilgrimage to quit smoking. Jack (James Nesbitt) is an Irish travel writer who when younger had desires to be great author like Yeats or Joyce but never wrote the novel he dreamed of. He is the last to join the quartet and has been suffering from "writer's block." As the pilgrims travel the Camino, they occasionally meet and talk with other pilgrims — two Frenchmen, a young Italian and an elderly priest from New York named Father Frank. Thomas occasionally sees his son alive and smiling among other people.

On the pilgrimage, the group have various incidents such as when a young Romani steals Tom's backpack. Although the thief escapes, his father drags him back to Tom to return the pack with his embarrassed apologies and an offer to attend a street party in compensation.

Video trailer of "THE WAY":

The Galician version of this post @ ArquivosDoTrasno.

VIDTIONARY: THE VIDEO DICTIONARY

Here's something new and interesting: VIDTIONARY. It's an online video dictionary for learners of English. It defines and expresses words through images and audio. You can search for words by categories, collections, parts of speech or alphabetical order. It's fantastic!

From today there's a permanent link on the right-hand sidebar of this blog: VIDTIONARY.

Here are some of its definitions:

- ARRIVE (verb):

- NOBODY:

- QUICK (adj):

- WATERFALL (noun):