I have a billon dollars – Try telling this to your Spanish novia/o

If you are a billionaire (I can hear you say ‘I wish’) and you want to tell your Spanish novia/o about it, be a little careful about what you say. (cuidado)

Are you are about to say “Tengo unos billones de dólares,”?

Think again. You might be saying that you are richer than Bill gates (Whose net worth is 40 billion US dollars.)

How does that work?



This is because Spanish uses the old British system, where one billion is not 1,000,000,000, but 1,000,000,000,000, which is about a million million in the US system.

The French invented both the systems (btw, they use the word millard for this), but the American system trumped due to the convenience factor when the business world started using the term ‘thousand million’ too often.

So, if you are really a billionaire (Don’t say ‘I wish’ again), what exactly would you tell your novia/o?

I am not going to tell you that. Google is wide open for the search. But yes I (along with the readers) would definitely like to know what you found out. So please hit google, and come back to post the result in the comments.

Adios Amigos, Hasta luego

Shahir

Nb: How many of you noticed that on the title it says billon and not billion? The theory proves itself. Once again.