Hello native speakers, I have a random and possibly stupid question for you

House number regularly (normally, even) get into four digits in the US, in some places even five. In my experience, it’s always “thirty-five forty-eight” when used for addresses.

I would say it as thirty-five forty-eight myself. The one that sounds weird would be three thousand five hundred forty-eight. (But if it were, say, 3000 South street, I'd say three thousand).

Thirty five, fourty eight for me in NZ.

I read it as thirty-five forty-eight

Ye it’s def three five four eight

US MidWest: Thirty-five forty-eight is how I'd read it, but I have heard some speak addresses as three-five-four-eight. Both would be fine. Also, at least in the US, addresses regularly climb up into 4 digits - I believe most addresses are 4-digit, and sometimes even 5-digit if the road they're on is long enough. As for how you're supposed to know it's an address: I suspect the the author is being literal here - the character literally is seeing the number "3548" painted on the curb. That, in some places, is used to mark the address, which is why the character takes it as evidence of being the right address, but it's just uncommon enough that she double-checks the address on the mail (package?) in front of the building, I suppose. Sometimes a number painted on a curb is a parking space number, though, so context matters

We would always say it either "thirty five forty eight" or "three five four eight" with the first being far more common. Not realizing it is an address until reading the word "curb" is exactly the experience I just had when reading this post, and I am in no way tired. You're fine.

Yknow the band blink-182? In the US its blink one eighty-two In the UK its blink one eight two So it depends like a lot, some numbers need to stay bundled. For example an address of 6754 id read as sixty seven right four. But an address like 468 id read as four sixty eight. Two digits like 75 id read as seventy five and five digits it depends. 98723 could be nine eighty seven twenty three or ninety eight seventy two three or nine eight seven two three. Its what feels natural to you

I am in Australia. I would say three-five-four-eight. If it was supposed to be pronounced ‘three thousand, five hundred and forty eight”, I would write the number with a separator like 3,548. My local street numbers don’t go past three digits, so if someone told me their address was “thirty-five forty-eight” main street, I would probably assume they mean Unit 35 of number 48 Main Street.

I skip over number 90% of the time. I register the first digit and let my eyes skip over the rest.

For me it depends on whether I was familiar with the address or not. My oma lived at ten seventeen the numbers you wrote I would just say the numbers.

Shouldn't't 3548 be in quotes? She spotted "3548" painted on the curb - this looks more natural for me as it'd be written in quotes in my native language.

can I add to that question? Let's say it's 3508 - do you say three five oh eight or three five zero eight?

Three five four eight from me, but that may be because I'm English and really don't deal with house numbers that long either

I usually say 3-5-4-8, but I know a lot of people that would say 35-48. I just find it is more clear to the person listening to say each digit separately. I'm also a person that says zero instead of "O."

What's funny about this is I went went straight to the line without context and read it "three thousand five hundred and forty eight" but when I got to the word 'curb' I went back and read it 'three five four eight' lol. That latter is much more natural. Edit: That's for an eastern US speaker!

For me I would say thirty five forty eight, no clue If that's a regional thing tho

Others have pointed out that U.S. pronunciation of addresses is usually thirty-five forty-eight, by tradition. But also of interest: in the US english, numbers that indicate quantity have a comma in them. With the comma, "She spotted 3,548 painted on the curb," my brain would say, "three thousand, five hundred and forty-eight." Without the comma, my brain gets to choose and given the context it goes with the traditional method. I grew up at "4433", and it was taught to me as "forty-four thirty-three."

I would say 35-48. Just like how we’re in the year 20-25. Some people would say 3-5-4-8, but it’s just easier imo to do 2 digit + 2 digit and saying Three thousand, five hundred and… that’s way too long and unnatural for me.

My house number is 30712, I pronounce it "Three Oh Seven One Two" Counting both sides of the street, there are only 32 houses ... so don't ask me why we have 5 digit addresses

I would say, given the context, that I would read this out "three five four eight" where it's underlined and it's fresh information, but then down where it says "The address was..." I'd say "thirty-five forty-eight Mercer", now that I know it's an address. In real life, I'd take a second to figure out how to phrase it smoothly after reading it on the curb.

I would just read out each digit individually. Three-five-four-eight. But that’s just how I have adapted to being clearly understood. Someone at a keypad waiting to type in the number I say won’t have a 35 key, or a 3000 key. I know people who would say thirty-five forty-eight. But that’s seems to be more of a rural thing.

You just say it however you want.

British English here. I would say "three, five, four, eight" in my head as I'm reading it. But I would subconsciously just skip it, really, unless it was an integral part of the plot.

Since the numbers are being used as an identifier, such as a house number or a telephone number, you should pronounce this digit by digit. Collecting the digits into a single number would be appropriate if it was counting something. So, either "house number three, five, four, eight" or "I have three thousand, five hundred, and forty-eight oranges". Combining the approaches ("three, five, forty-eight") can just be confusing, especially if you are saying it over a phone, such as giving a phone number to a customer service person. Read a phone number to one this way, and they will be silently wishing for your swift death.

This is subjective , but since it's a novel, you're reading. Personally, I'd stress the numbers individually. "She spotted the number 1-2-3-4" to point out the significance of the number that she's searching for, which is twelve hundred and thirty-four or twelve thirty-four or even one thousand two-hundred and thirty-four... There isn't really a wrong answer other than to point out that we , English users , tend to shorten what we say whenever we can so it would most likely be said as "twelve thirty-four"

I will say in everyday for me at least it’s a comfort thing so I’ll say thirty-five forty-eight but I would also say five thousand not fifty double-aught or fifty zero zero, and like saying an id number to someone over the phone I’ll use individual numbers but if it’s in person I’ll use 2 digit numbers like “twelve, thirty four, five-sixty-seven“ if my id number was “1234567”

In this case, I subvocalized 3-5-4-8, but only because I lacked the context of knowing it was an address before I read it. Had I known it was an address, I would’ve read “thirty-five forty-eight.”

It looks like you've had the number question answered thoroughly, just adding that if it were British English, it would say "kerb" not "curb"...

Definitely not "three thousand five hundred forty eight." I said "three five four eight." But I suspect most people would say "thirty five forty eight."

In my experience everyone has different ways of reading bigger numbers like this, personally I use all of the above

Thirty-five forty-eight or three five four eight would be how I read it. I read it as three five four eight in my head

It's not a dumb question, there is no standardized way people say the numbers in an address or phone number. Usually people choose the most efficient way. Rarely would someone say three thousand hundred and forty eight, as that would be harder for a listener to comprehend. Three five four eight or thirty five forty eight would be the most common.

You can say it either way. Some regions might say it one way or another, but it’s not like there is a standard. I’m sure you’ve already learned that English as a language has sort of slept with a dozen other languages and is not very well structured because of all the exceptions to the general grammar rules. So, for this I would probably split it into 2 numbers (thirty-five fourth-eight). But that doesn’t mean that’s the right way. For this there isn’t a set grammar rule, and if there might be, common speakers will not know or care. Sorry it’s not a great answer to your questions and pretty opened ended, but unfortunately a lot of English is like this.

Everyone says it a little differently, how you say it out loud isn’t really important as long as the digits are correct. I think the only weird way you could do it that would actually raise eyebrows would be if you rattled off the full “Three thousand, five hundred and forty-eight”. No one uses that many words for just an address. In other contexts using that full nomenclature would definitely be important, like if it is an amount of something quantitative. Since an address is just an identification number, just get the idea across without taking ten years to say it and everyones happy. lemme give a couple examples of different numbers and how you might hear them said in different contexts: 408 (dollars stolen from me by a naked man yesterday) “yes! right out of my hand at the atm! Four hundred eight!!” (in response to “what page are you on?”) “haha yea….. same as last week… four oh eight.” 69824 (gallons of water, used in comedy as exaggeration) “hey how many cups of coffee do you want me do brew for the PR meeting today?” “Sixty nine thousand eight hundred and twenty-four…” “…ohk- “Gallons…for me…” (zip code) “Hey where am I meeting you guys?” “six-nine-eight-two-four” “…motherfucker did you just give me a whole damn zip code??” Hope this is helpful!

Most fast readers do not hear voices when they read and just read whole sentences which translate to meanings .

Even out here in the country where there are only 2 houses in the mile I live in, our number is 4 digit. With every mile, the address changes by 100. My address is in the 1600's, south of us it 1700's. Once it hits another county, the numbers change drastically. Heck, even the street name changes.

(US south east) I would actually say three-five-four-eight

Three-five-four-eight is what I read (US, Midwest, native speaker)

I’m from the UK and house numbers are always write as the number not the word. 10 Downing Street for example. But some houses have names. Like The White House is Washington DC’s road address is 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In British addresses it’s always the house number followed by the road name. 1 Any Road Certainly in the town I grew up in the roads were all quite short so i think the highest house number I saw was 340 something and was around the corner from my parents house. Once I was driving through Nottinghamshire or Yorkshire and there was a road with so many houses along side it every so often there was a sign telling you which way the numbers went so you knew which way to turn. Now I live in Denmark and back to that example the name comes first. Frederikssundsvej 5 (for example). Similarly in UK addresses the town comes before the postcode (Milton Keynes, MK10 0AB) where’s in Denmark it’s first followed by the town/city - 1851 Frederiksberg // 2100 København.

I'm gonna be so honest right now, how I say it out loud varies based on the context but when I read it, it's just [...] in my brain like it's a picture instead of text basically. Not exactly but that's the closest I can get to explaining.

US South: I read it as three five four eight. Not sure why, but it feels more natural to read addresses and other identifying numbers digit by digit instead of as tone whole number

I know this isn't a helpful answer, but yes. I have used all 3 variations depending on what the address is. 2000? I'll say two-thousand. 2345? I'll say Twenty-three Forty-five. 15768? I'll say One Five Seven Six Eight. I'd think normally any 4 digit I would break it up into a pair of 2-digit numbers, however not ALWAYS. 9919 I wouldn't say Ninty-nine Nineteen (thought I wouldn't be surprised if someone else did!), I'd say Nine Nine One Nine. I can partially explain it to "whatever is fastest/easiest to say", but there are decisions I'm making that I'm not aware of.

It's the house number. They paint it on the curb to make it easier for emergency services and delivery drivers to find your house. Large front yards and not leaving the front light on will make it difficult to see the address from the street at night.

three thousand five hundred forty eight is a mouthful, and often, when you speak to someone, it can get lost in translation

I’d say three-five-four-eight. I’m born and raised in Ireland.

The only rule is you would *almost* never say an address with "hundred" or "thousand" You can spell out the digits or up to tens. 10450 is ten four fifty 1500 would be fifteen hundred, but 1520 would be fifteen twenty. Somehow, you just know how *not* to say it.

I read it as “she spotted three five four eight painted on the curb” personally

In America we often say address numbers especially for 4 digit ones in ways that would make the most sense to remember, so I'd usually break it into two parts, but some might say it as a thousand, it honestly depends largely on location and preference as well as memory, but it's not all that important how you say it.

You would read it the way you would read that number in any context.

three five four eight for me.

I've always said address numbers as the individual numbers, or three five four eight in this case. Apartment number is usually just the number if it's something like telling a new neighbor which unit I'm in, but I say the numbers individually if I'm saying my full address out loud. I don't know that there's a standard for this. "Three thousand five hundred forty eight" would sound weird to me. "Thirty five forty eight" sounds normal. If the address is less than 4 digits, I wouldn't think anything about someone saying either the full number or each number individually. Less than three digits and it's probably more common to just say the number normally. In the times I've run into five digit or more addresses, I think I've only heard each number said individually. I'm from the US, California specifically.

In many American cities, it's common for address numbers to be assigned by the block. * Addresses on one side of the street will be even numbers. Addresses on the other side of the street would be odd. * Address numbers of nearby buildings don't have to be consecutive numbers. * Address numbers will go up in value one way and down in value the other way. * If you continue down Mercer in the addresses-numbers-go-up-direction and go across a cross street, the address numbers on the next block will be 36##. Go to the next block and the numbers will be 37##, etc. (This is how the numbers get so big--we're dealing with 35 blocks, give or take, not 3500 houses.) * You can describe 3548 Mercer as being on the "thirty-five hundred block" since all addresses on that block will be 35##.

Thirty-five, forty-eight for me in Illinois. I also live at an address 786… I would say seven, eighty-six.

Confirming, three five four eight when talking about a painted house number. Three thousand five hundred and forty eight if you were talking about something countable like men or cabbages

I read that as three, five, four, eight. Australian here.

I was born in England and our street number was always said One Two Nine

Thank you!

I’d read it as three thousand… if I don’t have context of what the number means, if I know it’s an address then it would be three five…

Native speaker here. I heard it both ways: number by number or in pairs. three-five-four-eight or thirty-five, forty-eight. A lot of people say them in pairs just to make it easier on the listener to remember. Note: odd pairs can be spoken individually or in pairs. For example, 16722 can be said sixteen, seven, twenty-two.

Honestly, my brain mostly just skims over it.

I'd say thirty five forty eight. For addresses like 5500, I'd say fifty five hundred. For addresses like 12572, I'd say twelve five seventy two.

In my experience it depends on how familiar you are with the number. Three five four eight when you're unfamiliar, thirty-five fourty-eight when you are familiar.

I am in USA. I tend to skim and look at context before and after a number before deciding how to say it. For house numbers I either say "three five four eight" or "thirty five forty eight". As a house number, it isn't a number of objects or a total amount of money - it is more like a phone number which I will say as a series of numbers (three five four eight) UNLESS there is a pattern that is easier to say or memorize, such as "eleven eleven" for 1111, where "one one one one" is more awkward and hard to confirm that I said and you heard the correct number of ones. If I was reading this out loud, I might not look for context and end up saying it as "three thousand five hundred forty eight".

I would normally read an address like this as thirty-five forty-eight, though I might go with three-five-four-eight for added clarity, if I were calling for police or emergency assistance, for example. There are times when I would say "three thousand, five hundred forty-eight," such as when reading a sum of money ($3548), but I'd NEVER say that when reading a house number.

It's very common for street addresses to have four digits, even in small towns. I'm from a town where the central main street running east-west was designated as 50th Street and the center north-south street as 50th Avenue, so almost all homes had four digit address numbers. Some cities have streets and avenues numbering into the hundreds, so many homes have 5-digit street addresses. So I would read this as "thirty-five forty-eight" i.e. lot #48 past the 35th Street intersection on Mercer Street. (Or in a city with predominantly named streets it would be on the thirty-five hundred block on Mercer Street.)

If the topic was about looking for houses it makes sense to look at it like “35” “48” because that’s typically how I would notate a home address.

35-48. Does not feel regional to me

I'm in the US, but I'm also ADHD and on the spectrum so my answer may not be normal. I would read it as a string of numbers or skip over it and just recognize it as a string of numbers without "reading" it. If it was plot significant, I would come back to check it, but still just read it as a string of numbers. So Three Five Four Eight. Or maybe Thirty-five Forty Eight.

three five four eight (personally)

Where I’m from (USA) It’s not uncommon for each digit to be pronounced individually. As in, three-five-four-eight

I can’t think of many places in the US that aren’t 4 digit adressed. It would be read in two pieces though in most cases. (So thirty-five fourty-eight). There are some cases that are read differently (for example, the adress number for the White House (1600) would be read “sixteen hundred.”)

It depends on the numbers. It's like describing a telephone number. For example, I'd read 8523 as eighty-five twenty-three. But sometimes I would change it for a better vocal flow. I'd read 9100 as ninety-one-hundred rather than ninety-one double zero Or, if it would be ambiguous. Five hundred and three could be used to describe both 5003 and 503, so I'd read it as five oh three (oh pronounced like the letter O)

Just reading the underlined text out of context in my head, I said "three five four eight". When giving an address, I'd probably say "thirty-five forty-eight". Out of context, I'd be more likely to say "three thousand, five hundred and forty-eight" in my head if it was written with a comma like "3,548", but including the comma would be weird in an address.

I read it as three thousand forty eight first, then saw painted on the curb and realized. In my head, if I were to remember this book I would read it as thirty-five forty-eight.

Thirty five forty eight (I’m in Canada, but I’m almost certain this would be the universal English way to say an address).

I don't always say it in my head as I'm reading. Sometimes I'd skip/skim ahead in the sentence to understand what's going on/how the number is being used. Especially since this is a visual thing I'd just picture the four digits on a curb. Funnily tho I have a neighbor who has "forty eight forty" in cursive above their door. Their numerical address is 4840, but that number written out that way could also be 40840...

I see that others disagree, but for house numbers, I've always said the numbers individually because it saves time. Three-five-four-eight I guess it doesn't matter much

Possibly weird take but I don’t mentally sound it out at all when I see it. I just read over it. If I think about it though, and without knowing the context, I’d say three-five-four-eight (how I’dd pronounce some numbers written with no associated meaning). Knowing that it’s an address, I’d think thirty-five forty-eight.

Three five four eight

When I read I read thirty five forty eight. It’s quicker to get through.

Seems like something that varies by person. Personally, I would default to reading it as "three five four eight" in my head. It's how I usually recite telephone numbers. Meanwhile my dad reads out phone numbers two digits at a time, so I wonder if he would read it as "thirty-five fourty-eight".

I started reading it as 'three thousdand...' because I didn't know it was an address (I've never seen addresses painted on curbs so I was imagining some form of graffiti instead.) Doesn't really seem to matter though. If someone told me an address number was "3-5-4-8" or "3-5-forty eight" or"three thousdand five hundred and forty eight" I'd understand them all as the same address number.

Eastern Canada: Either “thee five four eight” or “thirty five forty eight”, but “three thousand, five hundred and forty eight” The first two are down to personal preference, but can be used interchangeably. Exceptions are whole thousand numbers (always read out as thousands) and hundreds numbers (read as hundreds or as digits). So 3000 Main St would be read “three thousand Main Street”. And 3500 would be “thirty five hundred” or “three five zero zero”, but not “thirty five zero zero”. We also often refer to “blocks” in terms of hundreds. For example, “thirty five hundred block of Main Street” would refer to all addresses between 3500 and 3599. Though this is often used in official circumstances, emergency services, for example.

In my experience, you can choose whatever version of this you want. I see a lot of people have answers to this that they consider normal, but you may have noticed that they do not all agree. I do not think there is a "correct" answer to this. The only thing I would say would cause native speakers to notice something was odd is if one used the full "three thousand five hundred and fourth eight" version on a long number that wasn't designed to be a quantity. As an example, I once had a job where we would use the last 5 digets of someone's credit card as a password for their account with the company. One customer answered (and I am making up this number), "Fifteen thousand four hundred and two." I understood what he meant, but thought it was very odd because that is not actually being used to count any number of objects.

As a firefighter who regularly looks at addresses we do the “35-48” read. It gets real tricky with the five or even seven digit addresses

Unless we are counting things we usually go like thirty five fourth eight. Faster and easier to memorize

There isn't really a wrong way. Personally I would both read and say this as 3,5,4,8 but know people who would do 35,48, I would say the 3 thousand one is incredibly rare although if the address was in the hundreds I would hear "three fifty four"(minus the 8)

It’s rare in the UK for house numbers to go that high. We usually have two or three digits. So I’d assume the book was set in the U.S. and my brain would skip over it without reading it in my head.

Always three-thousand, five-hundred, eight-and-forty. Any deviation is barbaric. Just kidding hahaha

Americans usually say thirty five forty eight when giving an address number. One number can refer to a cross street. So your house is number 35 at 48th street and Mercer Ave. It can be very helpful.

I live in Australia. With house numbers 3 digits or more, we tend to just say the digits. e.g. my house is 168 \_\_\_ street, I say "one six eight". Of course "One hundred and sixty eight" is also acceptable, but takes longer to say and is used more in quantifying countable objects, e.g. "one hundred and sixty eight jellybeans". In the case of 3548 I would say "three five four eight", but if we're going by strict english grammar, it would be "three thousand, five hundred and forty eight". I would never say "thirty five forty eight", but I guess in America that might be more acceptable.

Normally I'd write numbers as words if I meant them to be read a certain way. I'd put commas to give the reader the choice. I'd just write if I wanted them to read a series of digits.

I would say thirty-five forty-eight, but feel like a lot of people would say three five four eight. I think most Americans wouldn’t have any problem understanding either one of those. Also, I’ve only seen addresses on curbs in a few cities here- mostly California, in my experience, so you’re not alone there!

I personally read it broken up as "thirty-five forty-eight" but "three five four eight" is also fine. But if you say "three thousand five hundred and forty-eight" people are gonna look at you weird. ETA, that's usually only for house numbers/addresses/phone numbers. Also yes, it is quite common for house numbers to go into four digits. Idk what postal codes are like outside of the US and Australia, but the US also has five digit postal codes as opposed to Australia's four.

So I’m from the US Midwest and I would read it three five four eight but both breaking it into two digit or single digit numbers is fine, especially when telling someone else. Some people break stuff into three digit numbers if it’s multiple of three and specifically if it’s like a gift card where it’s written like 358 - 713 - 905 where the numbers are separated into segments, but outside of that it’s uncommon. Sometimes though people will swap between so 45678 will be read “Forty five six seventy eight” or “Four five six seven eight” or (less commonly) “Four five six, seventy eight.” Generally numbers in the thousands and higher are only read as such when you are doing a calculation or are trying to communicate an actual quantity (i.e. “Over 1.6 million dollars worth of damage has occurred”). Once again there is an exception such if the number ends in multiple sequential zeroes, so 2300 or 23000 would be spoken “twenty three hundred” or “twenty three thousand” though if you’re perhaps dictating a code you might dictate the zeroes separately as zero or “oh” (“two three oh oh oh/zero zero zero”). Generally though the only one native english speakers might get confused by is reading it with thousands and hundreds, but in most cases it’ll be fine.

I rarely saw 4 digit numbers outside of a big city business district until I went to Florida. The place I'm staying has maybe 30 houses on the street, but they all have 5 digit house numbers. When I lived out in the New England countryside, there were no house numbers at all. They have them now; the fire and police departments insisted.

Midwest US here, adding to the "thirty-five forty-eight" reading. Oddly enough though if it had been 5 digits I would read the address as individual numbers. For example, I currently live at 4903 (forty-nine oh three) but I used to live at 19625 (one nine six two five). Not sure why there's a distinction but it feels natural to me.

I also got kinda confused since im from the philippines and our adress system is kinda different from the us XD

It depends on the context as there are multiple options. 3548 in my neighborhood would be thirty five fourty eight as each block goes up by 100 with the street number. So that would be a house roughly in the middle of the 3500 block. And then the only clip I remember from this older sitcom is at this [link](https://youtu.be/Yk7YO8Rhz84?si=EdFTj7InuD8pff1S): if you are reading the number off for someone to enter into their phone, get a number rhythm. Saying thirty five with a pause between the thirty and five might cause them to enter 305 instead of 35.

The long form of the address is the actual mailing address but in the US we would often just say 35-48 or some people might say 3-5-4-8. I believe the term for treating longer numbers like that is called chunking. We just do it and say it like that for ease of handling larger numbers. Nobody would say the address is three thousand five hundred and forty eight. Hope that helps.

I read it as "She spotted [number] painted on the curb" and then I come back to it later if the number was important.

If a number is a numerical digit in certain context you read it as the number but in situations like a address or just a number that is encounting something it is common to just read each number individually, like a phone number but there's exceptions for some people

I'd personally read it as "thirty five forty eight", but I've definitely heard people say it as "three five four eight". Heck, I've said it that way myself with both my four-digit house numbers I've had. Honestly, I'll go back and forth with how I say it depending on context: usually if I'm giving someone the address for the first time, I'll spell it out, to make sure it's easy to get correctly ("3 5 4 8"), but if I'm just confirming it, like when I'm on the phone with the insurance company, I'll usually go with "35 48" because it's faster to say. I've never heard anyone say it as "three thousand five hundred and forty eight", probably because that's much more of a mouthful. Now with 3-digit house numbers, like my childhood house number (114) or my sister's current house number (**REDACTED**), I've only ever heard it as "one one four", not "one fourteen" or "one hundred fourteen". 5-digit numbers are usually also spelled out "three one one two six" or shortened as "thirty one one twenty six". "Thirty one thousand one hundred twenty six" would be weird here, as well. The exception to all this is numbers ending in multiple zeros. For example, my work is at 26000. I have *never* read it or said it as "two six zero zero zero" or even "twenty six zero zero zero". It's just "twenty six thousand". Again, it's faster. The same thing applies to four digit numbers ("three thousand" or "fourteen hundred"; eg, the White House is at "sixteen hundred" Pennsylvania Avenue, not "one six zero zero") and presumably three digit numbers, although I'm pretty sure I've never seen a three digit house number ending in two zeros.

The first comment here is correct. All other comments are just confusing you. thirty-five/forty-eight

I would say ‘three thousand five hundred and forty eight’.

For 1 or 2 digit addresses (very rare in the US for street addresses but common in the UK), we simply say the number. For 3 digits, we usually say the first digit and then the last two as one number (so 123 is one twenty-three). It’s also acceptable to read the whole number (one hundred twenty-three). For four digits, we say the former two digits as a number and the latter two digits as a separate number (1234 is twelve thirty-four). Anything above 4 digits, no one really knows how best to read them, even though 5 digit addresses are common. 12345 might be twelve three forty-five, or one two three forty-five, or one twenty-three forty-five, and so on. I try to avoid confusion by just saying each digit in sequence, one two three four five. If you are unsure what to do, reading one digit at a time like that will always be understood. I read all addresses this way over the phone or when using my address to verify my identity, for clarity, but not everyone does this. Don’t use a number higher than hundred when reading an address, in any case. If you read 1234 as one thousand two hundred thirty-four, this isn’t incorrect but native speakers dont say this, and some may be confused.

In the UK I have never seen a house number anywhere near this high, as they work differently to the US. We just start from 1 on any particular street, usually with odd numbers on one side of the road and even numbers the other. While they will go up to 3 digits in many cases, I don't think I have ever seen 4 digits - I can't think of any which pass 300.

Thirty five forty eight. However, my work address is similar to 1400 (4 digits, last two are zeros) and I say fourteen hundred.

I'm in the US, and personally I would say "three five four eight" 🤷🏽‍♀️ Purely based on the context. Like if I read "My friend said she lived at 3548 Apple Street." or whatever, I would read it as "thirty five forty eight apple street". But since I assume this person was looking at the street numbers and trying to find the house, I assume she's just looking for the right numbers in the right order and she finally saw "three five four eight" painted there and knew she was at "thirty five forty eight" Idk if that makes sense 😅

USian here. I feel like I’d only use “thousand” or higher if the number is meant to report an amount of something. If it’s just a string of numbers to give a distinct marker, I break it down into smaller bits.

No one says “3 thousand “ etc, but the other 2 options are common

So here's the question you ask yourself: Is this number describing something (i.e. the year, an address, etc.) or is it quantifying an amount of something? In this case it is a describing number so it's Thirty-Five Fourty-Eight. If it was quantifying an amount of something then it'd be Three-Thousand Five-Hundred Fourty-Eight. Similarly if the house number was 3 digits it's going to be said something like Five Fourty-Eight. Also, if the number zero is present, it works sort of differently. If the house number is 3048 then it would be said Thirty Fourty-Eight, but if it were 3508 then it would be said Thirty-Five O-Eight like Hawaii Five-O.

I've always heard it by individual digits (Canadian)

I read it as three five four eight.  That’s how I’d say it in terms of an address. 

I read that as two, two-digit numbers. Here’s a “book” for you on numbers and addresses and zip codes, 😝!! The block would be the 3500 (or thirty-five hundred block. The house/building number is three-five-four-eight, short-handed to thirty-five forty-eight in my head. It would sit between the 35th and 36th blocks (or imaginary lines where those blocks are if the landscape/established construction didn’t allow for those streets). In my experience we don’t treat addresses or phone numbers the same as countable objects (such as dollar values or in mathematics). We also frequently skip number values when it comes to addresses. This may have something to do with the size or length of the road frontage, or it may be arbitrary. My neighbor is 331 and I am 441. There’s nothing between us. The larger the “city” suburbs, the higher the block count away from the center, geographical point. An example of a grid system that’s pretty straightforward is Portland, Oregon where the Columbia River is its boundary to the north and the Willamette River runs near “true” north/south. Therefore, the Willamette is the divider or zero for the West and East areas as it splits them. On the eastern side of the river, the streets that run parallel with the river are numbered avenues - in most areas of town. 1st avenue, 2nd avenue, and 3rd avenue would be the One hundred, Two Hundred and Three hundred blocks. Addresses here are three-digit numbers, like: 110, 251, 348. Once you get to 10th avenue, you are now at the One thousand block (one thousandth) and a common address at the start of this block would be 1000 or 1001. So an address like 3548 would be between the 3500 and 3600 block, or 35th block from “center.” The chosen divider for the North and South areas is a street called Burnside. All streets that run east-west aka horizontal or perpendicular from the river (like lines separating North and South) are named streets. Interestingly, there is an art gallery on Burnside at the corner of 10th avenue, it’s called the One Grand Gallery and the address is 1000 Burnside. There’s a park that sits between 104th and 106th street and its address is 10520. I’d read this in my head as one-oh-five-two-oh kind of like the TV show named after a Beverly Hills zip code 90210. (Nine-oh-two-one-oh). Additionally, the addresses located on the north or west side of the street are odd numbered and the addresses on the south or east side of the street are even. Portland also uses the NW, NE, SE and SW designations in their addresses so at first glance you know where in the grid, the address sits. One Grand Gallery is merely E. Burnside because Burnside is the ZERO for the North and South. Any locations south of that would be SE. So I went overboard…. Haha

I guess in terms of correctness, it's three thousand....... however, put that long word next to a Street name, and that's a LONG address.

I just say the numbers individually.

Not three thousand. Usually I see 35 48, but this time I read them separately. Either of those are normal, thousand sounds strange

US I don’t know if it’s a rule but it’s common to pair digits together when saying numbers preferably the last two digits. For example in a car commercial. You’ll hear things like new car for $29,997 said 29-9-97, or 524 as 5-24. When you’re pairing up 08 you’ll say oh-8 but zero if it’s unpaired. Ex. were listing each digit individually then I’d say zero eight, but oh-8 if I’m already shortening a string of numbers like 5408. But more likely to say zero in something like 54025(54-0-25), but 540825(54-oh-8-25)

Uhhh, depends

My experience is that 310 is three ten, 5438 is fifty four thirty eight, and 14167 is one four one six seven - and I can’t make that make sense other than “that’s how it works where I’ve lived in the US Midwest

three five four eight for me

I have never seen an address painted on the curb, but I’m also not American

I would pronounce that as thirty five forty eight. I've lived at thirty two seventy one for 20 years now, but I grew up at a twenty one eleven and a fifty three nineteen.

Here in the northeast US, I'd say as a house number or postal address it would be "thirty-five forty-eight", however if this were just a number written anywhere else in a non-mathematical usage (graffiti, telephone number) it would be "three five four eight", and then for all mathematical or quantitative numerical uses it would be "three thousand five hundred [and] forty eight".

house address: "I live at thirty-five forty-eight Main Street." quantity: "There are three thousand five hundred and forty-eight crumbs in my cookie." reading it out loud: "She saw three five four eight painted on the curb." reading it in my head: "She saw numbers painted on the curb."

I read it as 3-5-4-8. Because if it was a number as a whole then it would be 3,548.

Based on what seems most natural to me, any 3+ digit non-quantitative number gets broken into mostly 2 digit numbers with occasional trailing 1 digit numbers. So I'd usually read this as 'thirty-five fourty-eight' or maybe as 'three fifty-four eight' I always use 'oh' for zeroes though, pretty much no matter what. That way you don't get people confused when you say 'three fifty eight' for 3508. I say 'thirty-five oh eight' instead. Do not quote me on this at all bc I don't have any studies to back it up, but I feel like this subliminal rule might be our brains trying to match the amount of stressed syllables to the amount of digits to make it easier to track. 'thirty-five fifty-eight' is 4 stressed syllables; same as number of digits, while 'three thousand five hundred and fifty eight' which is like 3-7 stressed syllables depending on inflection not to mention it takes a lot longer to say.

35 48

(US) I would definitely tell someone the address as "thirty-five forty-eight Mercer". I *might* read that sentence as "three five four eight painted on the curb", but "thirty-five forty-eight" is more likely.

I initially read the numbers individually because I thought it was just a random string of numbers. *She spotted three-five-four-eight painted on the curb.* But further down where it's clear that it's an address, I switched to the normal way to say addresses (east coast US). *The address was thirty-five forty-eight Mercer.* For three-digit addresses, people would say *three fifty* (350), *four twenty-seven* (427), *eight ninety-eight* (898) etc.

To add on to what others are saying, one of the reasons I think I would naturally default to "thirty-five forty-eight" is because of how a lot of apartment complexes work. If it's a big complex with multiple buildings, the address of individual units will often be the building number and the unit number squashed together (so unit 15 on building 23 would be 2315 despite there being nowhere near 2,315 units). It's similar with high-rise apartments and hotels where the first number will almost always represent the floor the unit is on.

I live in the US, and was raised by parents from opposite parts of the country. Spent time in Germany as a child, and have friends to whom I send mail who live or attend school internationally. I've always had a very keen ability to remember numbers. Thinking about it, I realize that I read addresses by saying each one of the names of the numerals in my head. We bought this house 25 years ago. I can still remember the house number of another house we made an offer on, but on which we were outbid. I have to say the numbers in a rhythm, but numbers tend to stick with me. The address of that other house was 18305 "2-syllable word Drive,. Since Drive, and five Ryan, I thought of that house number as "eighteen 3 O 5". Yes, I practiced the very horrible habit of pronouncing the numeral zero as O. My relatives who are school teachers always correct me when I say that someone lives at three "O"five whatever. ZERO they live at three ZERO five. When you giving my address, I state the number name of each numeral in it. I don't say "eighty seven seventeen". I say "eight, seven, one, seven". I think it avoids confusion

35hundred48

AFAIK it’s only spoken as “three thousand….” When there is a comma after the thousands place. So 3548 would be “thirty-five forty-eight” but 3,548 would be “three thousand five hundred forty-eight”

for addresses i typically would say thirty five forty eight, especially because the first digits typically refer to a block number. so 35th street has house thirty five forty eight or the thirty five hundred block of x street has house thirty five forty eight. this goes for three digit houses as well. so on 912 I would say as nine twelve. the exception for me is whole thousands so 1000 2000 3000 I would not say ten hundred, i’d say one thousand.

I’d say three, five, four, eight.

It depends on the context of the story. Knowing the story is set in the US I would say in mind in my internal reading voice in my head 35 48, knowing it is the convention for addresses. If I were reading a story set in Iceland or Finland or somewhere I know nothing about I would assume the character encountered numbers written on the ground and this was uncommon and mysterious then in my internal reading voice in my head I would say 3, 5, 4, 8. If the context was a story where the character was a surveyor or engineer who crouched down to note their measurement on the ground and mark the distance I would say in my head 3 thousand 5 hundred and forty 8. Context is everything. There are no stupid questions. Pizza in Naples is the best on the planet.

I read 'three five four eight' before reading your question. UK

You last point is correct - there is a cadence or rhythm to numbers that changes. Phone numbers and postcodes also have a cadence. You’re not giving the full ‘correct’ name for say 123,456,789. And yes, the cadence changes from region to region.

Honestly unless it’s important I ignore the number. Attempting it disrupts the flow of reading for little benefit

Australian here (also emergency services) I would pronounce each number individually. 3,5,4,8

Hello! Native English speaker from England here. As the number is written in digits (not words) and is not written mathematically (i.e. no comma after the thousand column: 3,548) it should be read: three-five-four-eight. In the UK, we describe addresses both ways but larger numbers are usually spoken one number at a time. It is very rare to have house numbers more than a few hundred (as our streets are not that long).

i’m for sure a crazy person, but everywhere i’ve ever lived i have usually given the address as individual digits (“three five four eight Mercer”). but reading it like that i would probably say it as two two digit numbers (“thirty-five forty-eight Mercer”). something about the difference between needing clarity when giving someone your address verbally, especially over the phone, versus needing to remember an address that you just read also, i’m sure there are places in the US where “3548 Mercer” would be an acceptable address, but it sounds SO weird without a direction. most places i know, there would be two buildings on Mercer that were numbered 3548: one on the east side of town and one on the west side (or one north and one south, depending). so i expect something like “3548 E Mercer”

The writer ensures that the reader interprets the text clearly. When written as 3,548 (with a comma), it should be read as “three thousand five hundred and forty-eight.” Without the comma, it is read as “three five four eight.” Hope this helps.

I read it as three five four eight because I didn’t realize it was an address. With the context of it being an address, it would be thirty five forty eight. I wouldn’t read it as three thousand five hundred and forty eight because there’s no comma after the three. If an address has 5 digits though, I would read each number individually. So 21318 Main St would be two one three one eight Main St. Zip codes are read as each individual number, too, if you’re curious. 90201 would be nine oh two oh one. “Oh” and “zero” can both be used for 0, though some numbers are culturally recognized one way and not the other. 90201 is a famous zip code and there was a show named 90201 and the zeroes are said as “oh” and would sound weird if said as “zero”.

I’m British English and our addresses don’t go up so high in numbers, so we don’t really have a convention about this. I’d say ‘three four five eight’.

Ya, this is not a dumb question at all. I read it as 3 thousand, 5 hundred 48 until I realized it was a house number. Then it swapped to three five four eight. It could go either way on the first read

It would be ready 3..….5.…...4..….8.

A number on a curb is likely a street address. And a number this high is likely an American one due to the way cities/counties the US structure their street number systems as compared to British. I'm not sure how other Anglosphere countries do addresses. An address in the US is "thirty-five forty-eight" or "three five four eight". You would not say "three thousand...etc" for an address.

American house numbers really confuse me

First time I read it (without context) I read "three thousand five hundred forty eight" But once I realized it was a street address, my mind went to "thirty five forty eight." Granted, it's also 1 am and I need to be up for work in 4.5 hours so I too am tired.

It’s not a stupid question. As the debate in the responses illustrates, this isn’t obvious of uniform. In the UK, house numbers never go up that high so I’ve genuinely no idea how I’d say it. I’d probably say “three thousand five hundred and fourth eight” but that’s a mouthful!

In the US this would generally be read as thirty five forty eight, it would sometimes be read as thirty five hundred forty eight, and rarely three five four eight

Thirty five forty eight. I used to have a very similar in Utah.

if I was reading that in my head, I would just identify it as a number in my head and not pronounce it at all. future occurrences in the text will just be identified as "that's the same number as before"

Whats important to note here is that the number doesnt actually matter and therefore cna be read anyway you feel like reading. This is an example of the number acting like a regular noun rather than a numeral. For example, you can say "I have 3548 pairs of shoes" But you cannot say "I have it pairs of shoes" Now look at the sentence in the OP post "She spotted 3548 painted on the curb" But you can replace it with a pronoun, or even add adjectives to modify it, such as "She spotted it on the curb" Or "She spotted a messy huge 3548 painted on the curb" So it doesnt really matter how you read the numbers. Whereas if it was acting as a proper numeral it might have an argument for a proper way to say the number.

I’ll be a bit nerdy with this one. The number lacks an article or quotation marks to make it an object: She spotted a 3548 painted on the curb… She spotted “3548” painted on the curb… Without any of them, it feels like there’s no object. She saw 3548 of something but it’s unknown what it was. Regarding OP’s question, I’d read “thirty five fourth eight” as it’s faster and easier to catch.

Britisher here. Nah I’ve never seen that high of a number. Our streets usually don’t reach above a hundred in numbers. I’ve heard addresses like this in America though so it’s much more common over there I believe

The exact way you'd phrase such a large number varies by dialect a bit. "Thirty-five forty-eight" seems reasonable to me as a west coast American. Example: https://youtu.be/YBbBbY4qvv4

I have 4 digit address. It's always said as "one two three four."

Thirty five forty eight in every day language. If you're on the phone with a foreign customer service agent, or need to be very precise for some reason, you use each number singly. Just being honest.

3548 is most likely an American number for a lot/building on an American road. However, it could be a code like 1312 = acab = all cops are bastards.

For an address, I would say "thirty-five forty-eight." I think this is most common, but some people might say "three five four eight." I don't think I've ever heard someone say it like "three thousand five hundred and forty eight" before and I would find it very odd if they did. I would only say it like that if I was describing a quantity of something, like dollars.

It does indeed vary depending on location. Britain, like your home country does not have 4 digit addresses (if there's a 4 way intersection, there usually be at least different 3 road names) and if numbers get above 1000, I think the road would just rename halfway down. (I don't know the actual reason but I know I've never seen those numbers and it has something to do with non grid streets). I feel I would say it like a year so "thirty-five, forty-eight" based on what American media I have seen (twenty three 11 Los Robles from big bang theory comes to mind)

I read thirty-five forty-eight.

Either thirty-five forty-eight or three five four eight. If I’m talking naturally I’d do the former. If telling my address to someone for the first time and need to be sure they get it right (like at the doctor or something), I’d do the latter.

I’m a native speaker, and I read the number in the picture as thirty-five forty-eight (even though I immediately recognized it as a house number). However, the house that I lived in while growing up had a five digit house number, and I always pronounced the address with each number separately (two, one, five, etc). This post has made me realize that I switch between these two styles without even thinking about it.

Not a stupid question It's mostly regional. I'm from the southern UK, and we would rarely have such high numbers in an address, so "three five four eight" would be natural. Americans seem to be more comfortable with it, and you hear things like "the thirtyfive-hundred block" to refer to the area where the addresses start with 35. So sure, it's natural to say "thirty-five forty-eight." "Three thousand forty-eight" is a bit weirder to me, and I can't say that I see many people saying that. It would be a bit like someone giving their phone number as "six million, seven hundred thousand..." And so on.

three fifty four eight /s

Australia; I dont think ive ever seen addresses written on curbs, but I would read it as three, five, four, eight.

In the UK or British English, would be “three five four eight” or “three thousand five hundred and forty eight”. In US/American English, house / street numbers are regularly 4-5 digits long so would be “thirty five, forty eight”, “three four five eight” is also valid in both

I don't think anyone would use the full number, "three thousand, five hundred and forty-eight" (note I'm British and in the UK we put in an 'and' before the units or tends and units) because it's unwieldy. However, I don't know the full logic behind how English speakers come to refer to numbers like this a three five four eight or even thirty-five forty-eight. E.g. buses. Here in London buses go from the 1 all the way up to the high hundreds (I think maybe there are buses in the 800 region). Where I am in North london we have the buses 43, 263 and 134, 210. But how do we actually say that? Well: 43 = forty-three 263 = two six three 134 = one three four 210 = two ten I guess it's simply down to what's quickest but logically we should say two one oh for the 210 (or even two one zero) but we say two ten. Ha.

I read it as three five four eight, but that’s maybe just me. Also, being English, I noted the spelling wasn’t the English spelling of Kerb (curb is the American spelling). FWIW, had I read it as the full number I would’ve said “three thousand, five hundred AND forty eight “. Edit: house numbers rarely get close that size in GB, that’d be a VERY long road!

It's "thirty-five forty-eight" for me. None of the options would sound incorrect, though.

Thank you everyone for your answer, the post absolutely blew up and you've been very useful, it was late at night when I made it so after a couple of hours I fell asleep and stopped replying and I missed about 90 comments, either way I'm grateful to everyone!

I think I would have put it like "3584" in quotes. This reads better, imho

Aus: three five four eight

I think I change it up all the time. If it's a year I'll split it in half, if its a house number like that (though they don't go that high in my country) I'd say them individually  I'm sure these comments have essentially said you can't do wrong

[2541](https://youtu.be/G71dWFXJ0FY?si=e8fwBQ16v7JpN0pJ)

In UK numbers would rarely get up to this high (we'd have numbers in the hundreds, but not thousands). I would read it three five four eight but that's partly because I'm not used to high house numbers. House number 254 would read as two hundred and fifty four.

Its a regional thing. I would pronounce each number as in "three five four eight" for an address. I've never heard anyone use the full number as in "three thousand five hundred and fourty eight" when describing an address or other designating/non-quantative number

Poultry

Unless the number actually represents a quantity then it is spoken as "three-five-four-eight". That is the case with your example. By contrast you could say "she counted and discovered there were three thousand five hundred and forty eight ants on the curb".

Pretty sure we don't have house numbers that high in the UK, I've only seen into the hundreds here, but that's not to say it doesn't happen. We also usually have house names/numbers on the actual house, not the curb. So as a Brit reading that, I didn't register it was an address until you pointed it out! I assumed it was graffiti or something, and read it as three-five-four-eight in my head. If I were reading it aloud I might have bothered to say the full number, three thousand four hundred(...).

I think technically, there's a right way to read addresses, and i think it's however many numbers before the last two are read as one number, then the last two numbers i.e 347= 3 47 5467= 54 67 12345= 123 45. I think that's supposed to be correct as that first chunk tells you what block you're on and the second chunk is exactly which house, but in practice, however you want to say the numbers is fine. (Usually though native speakers feel the same way about how it sounds and opt to not use thousands when saying an address)

Considering it’s a house address, I would read it as “thirty five, forty eight.” I can only speak for my dialect, American English, though, so a British person might read this differently.

I would say, as a native English speaker, thirty-five hundred forty-eight in this context.

More specifically we break them into chunks. I have a 5 digit number. So it 35 48 or 34 5 58 something like that for ease. Not a whole number.

You can read it as any of the three but if you were to tell someone this address.. either thirty five forty eight or three five four eight would be best.

USA here. For an address like that I'd say either: three-five-four-eight Mercer or thirty-five, forty-eight mercer.

I know there are hundreds of comments here already but just wanted to say that this is NOT a stupid question. As a native speaker I had never stopped to think about this before. Thanks for asking!

US right outside of the capital here. In the case of 4 digit number I would be more likely to break it into two two digit numbers and say thirty-five forty-eight or whatever the number mentioned was, but if it's over 4 digits then I'll say them individually three five four eight six or something.

Native speaker from England- I’d read it as three five four eight. In the U.K. house numbers never get that high and rarely get to three figures, however if they do we would use three hundred and fifty four for example. But with the four figures I think we would read them individually.

In English this can depend where you’re from, seeing the other comments in the US you’d group the numbers in pairs, as a Brit I would just read the numbers individually (three five four eight) or to be honest if it’s in this context like a story where the information isn’t ever relevant again I’ll just skim past and accept it’s a house number

Honestly I switch between thirty five forty eight and three five forty eight, if im telling the address I do the second, but mentally read the first.

GB native speaker here! Our house numbers don’t go that high either, but if I read it in a US-based story I would read it as thirty-five, forty-eight.

It’s kind of funny, where I live the 4 digit address numbers are considered short lol It’s a very rural area so a lot of the addresses have letters and decimals in them. I’ve seen 8-10 characters in some.

I say it as three five four eight

in UK when talking about addresses, phone numbers, or other number lists like bank accounts etc, you can say either three five four eight, or less commonly thirty five forty eight, but never three thousand five hundred and forty eight, that would be extremely unusual.

Either thirty-five hundred and forty-eight OR three thousand five hundred and forty-eight  From US