Prices and Money

A1 · BeginnerEnglish Basics

Learn how to read prices, talk about dollars and cents, and ask how much something costs.

What you'll learn

  • Dollars and cents
  • How to read a price aloud
  • How to ask the price
  • Using "each" and "per"

Dollars and cents

$1 = one dollar

$5 = five dollars

1¢ = one cent

25¢ = twenty-five cents

100 cents = one dollar

Reading prices

$1.00 → one dollar

$2.50 → two dollars and fifty cents / two fifty

$9.99 → nine dollars and ninety-nine cents / nine ninety-nine

$20.00 → twenty dollars

The full form comes first for learning — shortened conversational forms like "nine ninety-nine" are extremely common in everyday speech.

Asking the price

How much is it? (one thing)

How much does it cost? (one thing)

How much are these? (several things)

The decimal point in money

In standard US prices, a dot separates dollars and cents ($12.75), while a comma groups thousands ($1,275).

$12.75 = 12 dollars + 75 cents

This lesson covers only the money use of the decimal point — the Decimals lesson right after this one covers general decimal numbers.

Price labels

$5 each$10 per person$20 an hour

A quick preview: "20% off" and "$20 off" are two different kinds of discount — a percentage of the price versus a fixed dollar amount. Percentages have their own lesson later in English Basics.

Real life

Stores, cafés, tickets, services — prices come up constantly.

"How much is this?"

"It's twelve dollars."

"And these?"

"They're five dollars each."

Other currencies

€ = euro£ = pound

This lesson doesn't teach exchange rates or current values — those change constantly. The $ symbol doesn't always mean USD globally; context decides. Lingverly uses USD as its default example currency.

Continue later with Percentages

Practice

Exercise 1 · Read the price

$4.25 →

$10.00 →

$19.99 →

Exercise 2 · Choose the right question

Asking for a price:

Exercise 3 · Convert to price notation

twelve dollars and seventy-five cents →

Exercise 4 · $ vs. ¢

Twenty-five cents is written:

Exercise 5 · Each / per

Tickets are $5 ___ person.

Exercise 6 · Read the receipt

Coffee$3.50

Bagel$2.25

Orange juice$4.00

Muffin$3.75

0 / 4 matched

Exercise 7 · Singular or plural?

Choose the correct sentence.

Choose the correct sentence.

Exercise 8 · Interpret "each"

Apples are $2 each. If you buy 3 apples, how much do you pay?

Exercise 9 · Fix the mistake

Fix this: "$0.75 = seventy-five dollars."

Exercise 10 · One thing or several?

You're pointing at one jacket. What do you ask?

You're pointing at two T-shirts. What do you ask?

Quick challenge

Five quick questions to check what stuck.

Question 1 / 5

Score: 0/0

$1 =

You learned

  • $1 is one dollar; 100 cents make one dollar.
  • Ask "How much is it?" or "How much are these?"
  • The decimal point separates dollars and cents.
  • Prices can use labels like "each" and "per".
  • € and £ are other common currency symbols.