英语学习:数词的基本用法
(一)基数词的基本用法
1.定语
Fifty thousand London dockers are out on strike.
2.主语
数词作主语,谓语动词用单数。
如: Two months is quite a long time.
Five is an odd number.
3.宾语或介词宾语
How many do you want? -----Eight, please.
The city has a population of four million.
4.表语
We are altogether fourteen.
Five plus seven is twelve.
5.同位语
What work are you to assign us three?
Is there room for us two?
6.基数词+单数名词+形容词构成合成形容词。如:一个五岁的男孩a five-year-old boy;一座800米长的桥an 800-metre-long bridge;女子400米接力girls'400-metre relay race。
7.句型:主语+is +about(大约)/ over =more than(超过)/nearly(接近)+具体数词+metre(s)/kilometre(s)/kilo(s)long / high /tall /deep /away等。如:长江长6300公里。
The Changjiang River is 6,300 kilometres long.
8.表示“。。。。。。十”的数词的复数形式可以用来表示人的岁数或年代:
He is in his early thirties.
He died still in his forties.
This took place in the 1930s.
(二)序数词的基本用法
1.序数词主要用作定语,前面一般要加定冠词(或物主代词):
Tom is their second son.
They celebrated the 10th anniversary of the founding of the republic.
I will never give up, not even on the 1,000th or 10,000th try.
2.有时前面可以加一个不定冠词来表示“再一”, “又一”这样的意思:
We’ll have to do it a second time.
Shall I ask him a third time?
When I sat down, a fourth man rose to speak.
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