My housemate Jay, who is studying Chinese, just popped in my room and asked me a question “How do you write the number of One Billion in Chinese way?”. Right, this is the tricky one!
From what I learned in school in China, “one billion” is “one thousand million” (一万万), which written in number should be “1,000,000,000“. And I asked him how about in England, is it the same. The answer was correct, in England “one billion” is “one thousand million” as well. But, when I learned accountancy with a text book that published in American, “one billion” is “one million million”, which is added three more zeros in the number like this “1,000,000,000,000“. I remembered my teacher was also confused and blaming the American way of saying everything is different.
Please correct me if any of the above descriptions is wrong! But I don’t see this is true neither, otherwise how can be so many business going on between China and American?
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
This question puzzled me too. But I guess a million usually means ‘one thousand million’ in modern US English too. ‘A million million’ meaning might not be a frequently used term now.
It is very good