How to pronounce telephone number.

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Steven Mai

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Hi, could you please tell me if the following numbers are correctly pronounced?
1-800-5555 One-eight zero zero-five five five five
1-888-0535 One-eight eight eight-zero five three five
0908-398-862 Zero nine zero eight-three nine eight-eight six two
If it's correct, is there any other way to pronounce them? Let's say "one eight O O" instead of "one eight zero zero"
Many thanks in advance. :)
 

iannou

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Hi, could you please tell me if the following numbers are correctly pronounced?
1-800-5555 One-eight zero zero-five five five five
1-888-0535 One-eight eight eight-zero five three five
0908-398-862 Zero nine zero eight-three nine eight-eight six two
If it's correct, is there any other way to pronounce them? Let's say "one eight O O" instead of "one eight zero zero"
Many thanks in advance. :)

There are many ways, especially when there are multiples of the same digit.

The basic 7 digit number is generally like this:

Read the first 3 numbers as single digits, and the last four as two double digit numbers.
525-2793 is read, "Five two five, twenty-seven ninety-three."
A single zero is read as letter O.
525-2703 is read, "Five two five, twenty-seven oh nine."
2 zeroes in final position make a "hundred".
525-2700 is read, "Five two five, twenty-seven hundred."
3 zeroes in final position make a "thousand".
525-5000 is read, "Five two five, five thousand."
888-5555 could be read,"Eight eight eight, fifty-five fifty-five." or "Triple eight, fifty-five fifty-five."

In noisy conditions it's best to resort to reading each digit separately. And, this last method is correct in every case, noisy or not.
929-4501 "Nine, two, nine, four, five, zero, one."
 

emsr2d2

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Hi, could you please tell me if the following numbers are correctly pronounced?
1-800-5555 One-eight zero zero-five five five five
1-888-0535 One-eight eight eight-zero five three five
0908-398-862 Zero nine zero eight-three nine eight-eight six two
If it's correct, is there any other way to pronounce them? Let's say "one eight O O" instead of "one eight zero zero"
Many thanks in advance. :)

I believe that numbers in the USA which start 1-800 are free to call (they are "toll-free"). In the UK, "freephone" numbers begin 0800 and we say that as "oh eight hundred".

If I were reading aloud the first number you gave, I would say "one eight-hundred, double-five, double-five". However, I'm a BrE speaker so I don't know how an AmE speaker would say it.
 

5jj

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As a hangover from communications work when I was in uniform, I still read '0' as 'zero', but most speakers of BrE say 'oh'. Except for 'oh eight hundred' numbers, which ems mentioned, I think that most speakers of BrE would say 'double oh' for '00'.
 

emsr2d2

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As a hangover from communications work when I was in uniform, I still read '0' as 'zero', but most speakers of BrE say 'oh'. Except for 'oh eight hundred' numbers, which ems mentioned, I think that most speakers of BrE would say 'double oh' for '00'.

I always used "zero" at work (I worked at an airport so had to give flight numbers, arrival times etc as well as phone numbers) because it was much clearer and understood by pretty much all nationalities.

You're right though, in everyday speech, we use "double" and "treble" quite a lot.

My friend's mobile number is 07726-436999, which I say as "oh double-seven two six, four three six treble nine". (By the way, that's not really my friend's mobile number so don't try calling it!)
 
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