Information Sheet 1.2-3

Information Sheet 1.2-3: Comparing prices in establishments

Quantities and Cost in Establishments

Whether to use how much or how many depends on whether the following noun is countable or non-countable. In English, how much is often combined with non-countable qualities known as abstractions. These are common words such as time, water, and fun. Countable nouns are objects that you can count, such as apples, telephones, or cars.

Countable and Non-Countable Nouns: Using How Much and How Many

Talking About Money and Cost

Money is an example of a non-countable noun, so when talking about money and cost, you will need to use the phrase “how much.”

How much does the book cost?
How much do the toys cost?

How much can also be used with the verb to be to ask about a price:

How much is it?
How much are the apples?

However, if the question concerns a specific unit of a currency such as dollars or pesos, both of which are countable, you should use how many:

How many dollars does the house cost?
How many euros do you need for lunch?
How many pesos can you afford?

More Practice with Countable and Non-countable Nouns

Other categories of non-countable nouns include:

Activities: housework, music, socializing, etc.
Food types: meat, beef, pork, fish, etc.
Groups of items: luggage, baggage, furniture, software, etc.
Liquids: juice, water, alcohol, etc.
Materials: wood, steel, leather, etc.

When asking for the quantity of any of these items, make sure to use how much:

How much luggage did you take with you on vacation?
How much alcohol did you drink?
How much pork should I buy?
How much homework do you have?
How much knowledge do you have about the subject?
How much help did he give you last week?
How much advice would you like?

How Many is used with countable nouns. These nouns are easy to recognize because they generally end in the plural form with s.

How many books are there on the shelf?
How many days did it take you to finish the project?
How many computers do you have?

However, there are a number of important exceptions to this rule including the following countable nouns that have irregular plurals and do not take an s.

man -> men	How many men are in the boat?
woman -> women	How many women are singing?
child -> children	How many children came to class yesterday?
person -> people	How many people joined the cause?
tooth -> teeth	How many teeth has your child lost?
foot -> feet	How many feet is the football field?
mouse-> mice	How many baby mice are there?

Using Containers and Measurements

If you are looking for an exact measurement when speaking about food types and liquids, it’s a good idea to use containers or measurements. In this case, you can use how many to ask a question:

Containers:

How many bottles of wine should I buy?
How many boxes of rice should I get?
How many jars of jam do you have?

Measurements:

How many gallons of gas did you use on your trip?
How many cups of butter do I need for this recipe?
How many pounds of sand should I mix into the cement?

Answering How Much and How Many Questions Exactly

To provide an answer to a “how much” or “how many” question, you can provide exact amounts:

How much does the book cost? – It’s twenty dollars.
How many people came to the party? – There were more than 200 people there!
How much pasta should I buy? – I think we need three boxes.

Answering Questions of Quantity Approximately

To provide approximate answers, you can phrase like: a lot of, some, a few, and a little. Note that there are slight differences between countable and non-countable answers.

You can use a lot of with both countable and non-countable nouns which are followed by the noun in the answer:

How much rice do we have? – We have a lot of rice.
How many friends did you make on vacation? – I made a lot of friends.

You can also use a lot of for both countable and noncount nouns when the answer is not followed by a noun:

How much time do you have today? – I have a lot.
How many cars have you had in your life? – I’ve had a lot.

You can use some with both countable and non-countable nouns:

How much money do you have? – I have some money, but not much.
How many apples are on the table? – There are some apples on the table.

You should use a few with countable nouns and a little with non-countable nouns:

How much fun did you have? – I had a little fun last night.
How many glasses did you drink? – I drank a few glasses of wine.

Comparing Prices

Price comparison is comparing the price of the same product in different outlets. Price levels are based on price comparisons with major competitors. Price comparison websites can take the hassle out of finding the best deal. Price comparison is comparing the price of the same product in different outlets.

Money & Prices

Talking about money and prices is an important part of everyday language. Here we can learn how to talk about money and prices.

What Are Money and Price?

All the countries in the world use money in exchange for things they need. Money can come in different forms, such as paper, coins, and digital currencies. Price refers to the amount of money that is required to purchase a good or service. It is the value that is placed on a product by the seller.

What is Currency?

Each country has its own system of money. It’s called currency. In the following, you can see some of the currencies used in English-speaking countries.

Country	Currency	Symbol	Abbreviation
USA	US dollar	$	USD
UK	The Great British pound	£	GBP
Canada	Canadian dollar	C$	CAD
Australia	Australian dollar	A$	AUD
EU countries	Euro	€	EU

Tip!

Please note that ‘Pound’ here refers to the pound sterling and not the pound that is used for measuring weight. They are not the same.

Units of Money

Dollar, Pound, Euro, etc. are all units of money. Each unit can have smaller units such as cents and pence. Let’s have a look:

Currency	Paper	Coins	Units
USD	$1, $2, $5, $10, $20, $50, $100	¢1, ¢2, ¢5, ¢10, ¢25, ¢50, $1	Dollar, Cent
Euro	€5, €10, €20, €50, €100, €200, €500	€0.01, €0.02, €0.05, €0.10, €0.20, €0.50, €1, €2	Euro, Euro cents
Pound	£5, £10, £20, £50	Penny (1 pence), 2 Pence, 5 pence, 10 pence, 20 pence, 50 pence, £1, £2	Pound, Pence, Penny

Tip!
There are some slangs that you might hear from people when they are talking about Dollars. For example, instead of 20 Dollars, we can say 20 bucks. In the UK, ‘quid‘ is used instead of pounds; for instance, instead of saying ‘I need 30 pounds’, you can say ‘I need 30 quid’. And for coins, they sometimes use the word ‘piece’ or more informally ‘bit’.

Warning!
Please keep in mind that talking about money, especially asking about someone’s salary is extremely inappropriate in English-speaking countries. And it should be avoided.

Tip!
When you pay for something in cash, sometimes your bill is worth more than the asking price. For example, you ate at a restaurant and the bill is $40, and you hand the waiter a 50-dollar bill; in this case, you can wait for the ‘change‘ which is the rest of your money. You can either take your change or tell the waiter to ‘keep the change‘.

How to Read Prices

Using “how much” to ask about prices

There are different ways to say the prices; you can only say the numbers, or say the whole number of dollars or pounds or euros followed by the cents or pence, or you can use slang words. We will go over the most common ways of saying prices in the following examples:

One, Two, Three Digit Prices

$2.50→two-fifty
We can just say the numbers

$2.50→two dollars fifty
We can mention the unit

$2.50→two dollars and fifty cents
We can say both the units and the numbers. This is more formal.

We should know that if the price is an exact number of pounds, euros or dollars, we should say it completely.

$600.00 → six hundred dollars
£560.00 → five hundred and sixty pounds

The zeros after the decimal point are not supposed to be pronounced. and are just to help for reading the price.

When the price has ‘one‘ at the beginning, we can use ‘a’ instead of ‘one’, for instance:
£100 → a hundred pounds

Four Digit Prices

Typically, we read these prices in the same manner as described above. For example:
$1458.20 → a thousand four hundred fifty-eight, twenty
$4250 → four thousand two hundred fifty dollars

If the last two digits are zeros, we can say the price in two ways:
$1200 → ‘twelve hundred’ or ‘a thousand two hundred’
The first way is common in American English, it is not grammatically correct, but it is to shorten the words for the speaker.

Tip!
When reading prices, we typically divide the number by the decimal point. This means that we first read all of the numbers to the left of the decimal point, and then start over and read all of the numbers to the right of the decimal point. Let’s check some examples:
$352.20 → Three hundred fifty-two, twenty
$5.30 → Five, thirty
$25.60 → Twenty-five, sixty

Prices with More than Four Digits

The general rule here is the same as what we have discussed so far, let’s see how we write prices higher than a thousand.

$1,000,000 → a million dollars
$2,450,300 → Two million and four hundred fifty thousand and three hundred
$1,000,000,000 → a billion dollars
$1,340,652,500 → One billion and three hundred forty million and six hundred fifty two thousand and five hundred
$1,000,000,000,000 → a trillion dollars

Tip!
In the UK, paper money is called a ‘note’. However, a five-pound note is called a fiver, and a ten-pound note is a tenner. In American English, paper money is called a “bill”, and 10 cents are called a dime.

Asking about Prices

There are many ways to ask about prices in English. The first thing to remember is that since money is uncountable, we need to use ‘How much’ to ask about it. Here are some of the most common expressions used to ask about prices. You can use them in your everyday shopping.

How much is this/that? (are these/those?)
How much does this/that (these/those) cost?

Tip!
To be very polite when you want to ask about prices, you can use the following phrases:

What is the asking price of this?
Would you please check the price of this for me?
Would you please tell me the price of this/that?

Telling the Price

To answer a question about prices, we use the dummy ‘it’. If you are saying the price at the moment, you use: ‘It + is’. If you have bought something and you want to say how much you paid for it, you can use: ‘It + was’. Let’s see some examples:

It is $2.50.
It was $445.

Warning
We cannot use phrases such as ‘The price is…’, ‘The cost is…’, or ‘I paid the money’. They are not grammatically wrong but they sound unnatural, unnecessary, and weird.

Punctuation

Here are some tips about punctuation in prices:

There should be no space between the dollar sign and the amount for US currency. Same goes for Euro and Pounds.
If we have the price at the end of a sentence, It is ok to use a full stop after it.
In the US and UK, a comma is put every 3 digits for numbers larger than 999. The decimal point is presented with a period. For example:
2,254
26,576
1,124,967
5,000.01
When there are zeros after a decimal point, it is to show that the number has not been rounded and it is the exact number:
$1200.00

Lesson Story:

Lisa needs new boots because her old ones are falling apart. Dad decides to take her out on a trip to the mall. At the mall, they find boots with different looks and prices. Lisa is busy comparing the boots based on their looks while Dad focuses on price and affordability. In the end, they both decide to buy the boots that are satisfying to Lisa and are reasonable priced.

VOCABULARY:
New Words

mall

boots

bows

falling apart

buy

try on

Color descriptions

brown	boots
red	boots
green	boots

More ways to describe

cheap	boots
affordable	boots
expensive	boots
beautiful	boots
ugly	boots
colorful	boots

Adjectives	Comparatives	Superlatives
cheap	cheaper	cheapest
ugly	uglier	ugliest
colorful	more colorful	most colorful
affordable	more affordable	most affordable
expensive	more expensive	most expensive

Key Sentences:

Sentences with comparatives

These boots are cheap. They are cheaper than the other ones.
Those boots are expensive. They are more expensive than these ones.
These boots are more affordable than the other ones.
I like these boots because they are more colorful than the other ones.

Sentences with superlatives

These boots are the most colorful of them all.
Those boots the cheapest of them all.
These boots the ugliest of them all.
These boots are the most expensive.
These ones are the most beautiful of them all.

Dialogue Script

Lisa: Dad, I need some new boots.

Dad: What is wrong with the boots you have now?

Lisa: They are falling apart.

Dad: Okay, we will go to the mall.

Lisa: Dad, I love these boots!

Dad: What do you love about them?

Lisa: I love how colorful they are. They are red and they have bows.

Dad: Are they expensive?

Lisa: Yes.

Dad: I don’t know if we will be able to afford them. Try them on.

Lisa: They don’t fit.

Dad: What do you think of these?

Lisa: I don’t like them.

Dad: What’s wrong with them?

Lisa: I don’t like the color. And there are no bows.

Dad: Well, they are cheaper than the others. Please try them on.

Lisa: They don’t fit either.

Dad: Okay, what other boots did you like?

Lisa: I love these ones!

Dad: I like the color. Are they expensive?

Lisa: No, they cost the same as the brown boots.

Dad: Okay, try them on.

Lisa: They fit!

Dad: Oh, good. Let’s buy them.

Mom: Did you find any boots you wanted?

Lisa: Yes. We bought some green ones with bows.

Dad: They are very nice.

Mom: Were they expensive?

Dad: No, they were cheap.

Lisa: And they are beautiful, too.

How to Talk About Prices in English – Vocabulary, Phrases and Idioms

What Do We Mean By ‘prices’?

A price is the amount of money expected, required, or given in payment for something. Every product or service in the world has a price, and that price will depend on many different factors.

The main aim of this blog article is to build your business vocabulary on prices, but also on finances in general. As we say in English, money makes the world go around, so you will definitely need to know these words and phrases when talking about prices and finances at work in English.

Some of these words and phrases may already be familiar to you, whereas others will of course be new. Finally, make sure you don’t dismiss the ones you already know; you may have missed something!

Let’s start by clearly defining the main differences between a phrase and an idiom.

What’s the Difference Between a Phrase and An Idiom?

A phrase is essentially a group of words that express a concept and is used as a unit within a sentence. Eight common types of phrases are: noun, verb, gerund, infinitive, appositive, participial, prepositional, and absolute.

Some Examples of a Phrase Are:

“Sunday became a warm, sunny afternoon.”
“She was waiting for the rain to stop.”

An idiom on the other hand is a group of words established by usage as having a meaning not deducible from those of the individual words.

Two Common Examples of Idioms Are:

“Speaking English at work is a piece of cake!”
“Have you seen the weather outside? It’s raining cats and dogs!”

Useful Phrases

First of all, we’re going to look at some useful phrases we can use when talking about prices and sales in general. Remember to practice using them in example sentences of your own, and think about how you can apply these vocabularies to your own everyday work life.

Cost a Fortune
If something costs a fortune, then it means it costs a lot of money. You can refer to a large sum of money as a fortune or a small fortune to emphasize how large it is. Cost is simply the verb in this phrase.

“Their services cost a fortune. We’re going to have to speak to our line manager before we finalize the purchase.”

“That company car must have cost a small fortune.”

That’s a Bit Pricey/Steep!
When we think a product or service is a bit too expensive or overpriced, we can say that it’s ‘a bit pricey’ or ‘a bit steep’. We usually use this phrase in response to an offer that we think is too high.

“He showed me their new line of products but I thought they were a bit pricey to be honest.”

“$2000? Personally, I think that’s a bit steep! Your competitors are offering the same product for a fraction of the price.”

It Costs an Arm and a Leg
Another great phrase we can use to talk about prices is “it costs an arm and a leg”, which essentially means something is very very expensive. It’s an idiom that compares the price and value of an item to our most important body parts – our arms and legs.

“I’d love to work with this new supplier, but their prices cost an arm and a leg.”

“Nowadays, it costs an arm and a leg to travel to London by train.”

That’s a Rip-Off! / I Was Ripped Off!
Have you ever paid a large sum of money for a product or service you thought wasn’t very good? Then I’m afraid you were “ripped off” my friend! As you may have already guessed, if something is a rip-off it means that the price is not worth the product, or that you’ve been cheated into buying something less valuable than you originally thought.

“That new smartphone is an absolute rip-off. I can’t believe I spent all of that money on it!”

“I felt we’ve really been ripped off here. Let’s contact our suppliers and see how they view it.”

I Can’t Afford It
If you can’t afford something, then it means you literally don’t have enough money to buy or pay for that thing. Afford is a verb which means the act of having enough money. We can either afford something or not afford something.

If you say that you cannot afford to do something or allow it to happen, you mean that you must not do it or must prevent it from happening because it would be harmful or embarrassing to you

“We really can’t afford to lose more of our sales team. It’ll look really bad on us.”

“Although we love your products, we simply just can’t afford them I’m afraid.”

That’s Quite Reasonable…
This is a great phrase. If a price is quite reasonable, it means that it is neither too expensive nor too cheap. If something is reasonable that the customer basically thinks the product or service is fairly priced. We can use the word ‘reasonable’ with many different adverbs.

“I think $150 for a new replacement part is quite reasonable in my opinion.”

“$10 for a t-shirt is very reasonable to me considering the production costs to make it.”

Words About Prices

Now let’s take a look at some useful words relating to prices. You can use these words to talk about a variety of things, from prices to finances to the economy.

Debt (noun)

The word debt is a noun which means a sum of money that is owed or due to someone. We can also use the word debt as a feeling of gratitude for a service or favour. We can also use the phrase “to be in debt”.

“James is in a lot of debt at the moment after investing all of his money into that new stock.”

“Hidden debt is one of the most common reasons for couples separating or divorcing.”

Haggle (verb)

Haggling, or to haggle, is a verb, which means to dispute or bargain over the cost of something. You may have seen people haggling at market stalls when buying food or other products. It’s when the customer is trying to get the vendor to lower the price of something.

“My mum was great at haggling. She always got the best price.”

“If you can haggle then you can potentially save a lot of money.”

Thrifty (adjective)

Thrifty is a great adjective used to describe someone who uses and spends money or resources carefully.

“He had been brought up to be thrifty and careful with his money.”

“It’s no wonder Chris is the best purchaser we’ve ever had. He’s incredibly thrifty!”

Profit/Loss (noun)

A profit is a financial gain, especially the difference between the amount earned and the amount spent in buying, operating, or producing something. A loss on the other hand is an amount of money lost by a business or organization. Both words are nouns.

We can also use both of these words as collocations. We can ‘make profit’, or ‘make a loss.’

“We’ve made a lot of profit from this new advertising campaign.”

“We made a loss in Q3 so let’s hope Q4 will be better.”

Recession (noun)

A recession is basically when the economy is not doing too well. It’s a period of temporary economic decline during which trade and industrial activity are reduced. This is usually caused by a drop in GDP (gross domestic product) over a period of time. A country will often be described as “going into a recession” or “in a recession”.

“Brexit has caused the British public to fear and panic over the possibility of a recession.”

“Housing prices have rocketed due to the ongoing recession in the UK.”

Idioms About Prices

Finally, we’re going to examine some common and useful idioms we can use to talk about and describe prices and other financial related things. Remember you should be extra careful when using idioms at work, especially if you’re communicating with other non-native English speakers. They might not be familiar with such terms!

Money Doesn’t Grow on Trees

Something my mum used to say to me almost every day when I was a child! When somebody doesn’t seem to appreciate the value of money, we can say to them that money doesn’t grow on trees. We say this to express that money is a precious commodity and something that we must value and use wisely.

“Stop asking me for sweets all the time. Money doesn’t grow on trees, you know!”

“Lili keeps asking for a pay rise but I’ve told her numerous times that money doesn’t grow on trees.”

Squirrel Away Money
To squirrel away money means to to put something in a safe or secret place especially so that it can be kept for future use. People who like to hide or save money will often use this idiom.

“As soon as I get paid, I squirrel some money away so I won’t be tempted to spend it.”

“Most of her money is squirreled away somewhere.”

Break the bank
Probably one of the most common price idioms in the English language. To break the bank is a great phrase that we use to say that something costs more than we can afford. If something breaks the bank it means it is very expensive.

“Buy a car that is reliable but also doesn’t break the bank.”

“Our products are well made and of high-quality, but they won’t break the bank.”

Bread and Butter

The final idiom we’re going to look at today is bread and butter. If something is your bread and butter then it means it is your primary source of income. Freelancers will often use this term to talk about big companies that contribute a lot towards their monthly or yearly salary. We can also say “bread and butter work” or “bread and butter clients”.

“Their bread and butter is reporting on international events.”

“KLM are their bread and butter clients. Most of their revenue is from them alone.”

In Short

By now, you should have a few more good words and phrases in your business language arsenal to help you express and communicate prices more clearly, fluently and professionally in business and in English. Remember to practice using these new words and phrases in example sentences of your own. This will help you to remember and understand the new language more effectively and easily.

Reference:
https://www.thoughtco.com/how-much-many-money-3973857
https://langeek.co/en/grammar/course/1551/money-and-prices
https://www.fredisalearns.com/unit-10-shopping-for-shoes/
https://www.we-speak-business.com/blog/how-to-talk-about-prices-in-english-vocabulary-phrases-and-idioms