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How many are there in a dozen?

Or,

How many units are there in a dozen?

As a learner the second sentence seems better to me.

How would native speakers say this?

Also,

Is the sentence:

How many centimeters are there in a meter?

natural to native speakers?

Thanks in advance.

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    Most native speakers would omit 'units' when discussing what 'a dozen' means. The second sentence, "How many centimeters are there in a meter?" is fine, but where I live we have centimetres and metres.
    – Michael Harvey
    Jan 30, 2020 at 18:23
  • How many is a dozen? How many is one gross? As Michael Harvey wrote, the second is fine (with regional spelling).
    – Weather Vane
    Jan 30, 2020 at 19:21
  • ...or "How many beans make five?" Or "3 times 4 makes 12."
    – Weather Vane
    Jan 30, 2020 at 19:32
  • @Weather Vane - metre is 'regional' if you classify 'everywhere except the US' as a 'region'.
    – Michael Harvey
    Jan 30, 2020 at 22:37
  • @MichaelHarvey I wondered which way that would be taken: I meant that the US spelling is regional.
    – Weather Vane
    Jan 30, 2020 at 22:48

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Most native speakers would know the word "dozen" so there would be no need to ask about it. The most likely question is "What does dozen mean". However suppose that we know that dozen represents a number, but we don't know which number.

You could ask "How many is a dozen?" There is no need for "units", but as noted this is not a natural question to ask.

I suppose if there were 20 heating units in a pallet, and you were shipping a dozen pallets you might ask "how many units in a dozen" (answer 240) because you couldn't do maths... It is quite a stretch.

(no problem with the other sentence)

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  • As you noted, "how many units in . . ." might be used - depending on the context.
    – Mark G B
    Jul 4, 2021 at 21:57

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