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I still have a problem with pronouncing big numbers in English. Aside from all other issues, I found one single problem that I still haven't figured out how to use properly or "if" I can use it in the first place.

I frequently hear people speak, say, 1300 like "thirteen hundred" rather than "one thousand and three hundred." My question is, can I do this with any number in the range between 1000 and 9999?

For example, can I speak 5000 like "fifty hundred" and 2600 like "twenty-six hundred"?

I'm mostly wondering if this style of number speaking is commonly only used for numbers below 2000, or if it's applicable whenever it's more convenient than speaking the mixture of "thousand" and "hundred".

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You can use it up to about 9,000, but not for the round thousands themselves.

These all sound fine to me:

twelve hundred

thirty-four hundred

seventy-five hundred

This sounds a little odd:

ninety-nine hundred

These sound wrong:

twenty hundred

seventy hundred

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  • Hmm interesting. Could you tell me how I can call 9900 rather than "ninety-nine hundred"? Does "nine thousand nine hundred" sound better? (or "nine point nine thousand"..?)
    – Gwangmu Lee
    Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 13:09
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    @GwangmuLee Yup, nine thousand nine hundred sounds better.
    – Luke Sawczak
    Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 13:48
  • "nine point nine thousand" sounds bizarre in regular conversation, though. I would only use that construction if I were doing something like looking at a table or chart where values were listed in thousands; then I might say "OK, this value is nine point nine thousands..."
    – stangdon
    Commented Jul 14, 2022 at 14:45

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