Special characters in English are those little symbols that look like this: _ % – @ . They’re beautiful, right? But how confident are you at saying them out loud in English? If you’re a little uncertain, it’s very understandable! That’s because depending on the context, the symbol can take a different name.
This article will clarify the difference! And next time you’re giving your email address on the phone or telling your boss some fast numbers, you’ll be master of the symbols.
Email address
Have you ever been asked to provide your email address in English, then realised you have no idea how to describe the special symbols of your email address?
When you need to verbally give your email address in English, there are specific words that you can use for each symbol.
@ at
. dot
_ underscore
– dash or hyphen
Imagine your email address is John-Smith_123@gmail.com. Out loud, you say: John dash Smith underscore 123 at gmail dot com. And by the way, what an original email address!
“when referring to websites or email addresses we typically say “dash”. when talking about a range of numbers, dates, and times, we say “to”.“
Website url
Special characters in English are almost exactly the same for website and email addresses. However, in the case of URLs, there are additional symbols you might need to say out loud. This is useful to know if you are ever telling anyone a website address, or maybe even your own company website!
/ forward slash
: colon
For example, if you were reading out the complete URL https://talktips.tv, then you would say http colon forward slash forward slash talktips dot tv.
Speaking of the online world, are online meetings in English a part of your job? If yes, this resource on virtual meetings in English is a great way to get tips for that specific situation.
A range of values
How do you say this sentence out loud?
Our target client is 20–30 years old.
Interestingly, here the special character is neither dash nor hyphen, because now we’re not referring to websites or email addresses. In fact, this sentence refers to a range of numbers, and when that happens, you verbalise the symbol as “to”.
Our target client is 20 to 30 years old.
Another example is:
100–120 employees
100 to 120 employees
We also say “to” when referring to a range of dates.
The years 2020–2022 were unstable
The years 2020 to 2022 were unstable.
And again, for time ranges, the same pattern follows.
I work 9–5pm I work 9 to 5pm.
The – symbol may seem complicated, but to summarise: when referring to websites or email addresses we typically say “dash”. And when talking about a range of numbers, dates, and times, we say “to”.
Decimals
We say “dot” when saying a website or email address, right? Well, completely disregard that rule when using decimal numbers! Instead, say “point”.
Let’s see some examples.
0.28 is zero point two eight
3.14 is three point one four
18.654 is eighteen point six five four
And if you’re talking about numbers and statistics, you might also need one last symbol, explained below. (Then I promise the special characters in English torture is over.)
Percentages
We’ll make this one short and sweet. Say percent when you see this symbol %. Easy, right? Let’s check some examples.
5% is five percent
99% is ninety-nine percent
13.5% is thirteen point five percent
See what we did with the last example? Percentages AND decimals! We’re applying all your knowledge of special characters in English, and crushing it!
Want to go further?
