Long Scale vs Short Scale: Why a Billion Is Not Always a Billion
Million means the same thing everywhere, but billion does not. This is one of the most expensive misunderstandings in international documents.
The two systems
Short scale: every new word is 1,000 times the previous one. Million = 106, billion = 109, trillion = 1012.
Long scale: every new word is 1,000,000 times the previous one. Million = 106, milliard = 109, billion = 1012.
So the same word “billion” means a thousand million in the short scale and a million million in the long scale.
What Numbrate uses per language
| Language | Scale | 109 | 1012 |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | short | one billion | one trillion |
| German | long | eine Milliarde | eine Billion |
| French | long | un milliard | un billion |
| Spanish | long | mil millones | un billón |
| Italian | long | un miliardo | un bilione |
| Dutch | long | een miljard | één biljoen |
| Turkish | short | bir milyar | bir trilyon |
| Portuguese (Brazil) | short | um bilhão | um trilhão |
The English column is the same in the United States and, since the UK government’s official adoption of the short scale in 1974, in Britain. Older British texts may still use the long scale.
Why it matters
An English “one trillion” is 1012, which the German call eine Billion. A German reading an English document that says “one billion” may think of eine Billion (1012) when 109 is meant, a factor of one thousand. A translation that keeps the same word without adjusting the scale makes exactly that error.
How to stay safe
- Write the figure beside the words in any cross-border document: 1,000,000,000 (one billion).
- Use the language’s own scale when translating. Do not translate “billion” word for word into German or French.
- Use scientific notation or SI prefixes (giga, tera) in technical text, which are scale-independent.
Other systems
Chinese, Japanese and Korean group digits by ten thousand (myriads), and Hindi, Bengali and Urdu use lakh and crore. See lakh and crore. Numbrate handles each one in its own language, so the same number is written correctly in all of them.
Frequently asked questions
Is a British billion the same as an American billion?
Today, yes: both mean 1,000,000,000. Older British usage meant a million million.
What is a milliard?
The long-scale word for 1,000,000,000, used in French (milliard), German (Milliarde), Italian (miliardo) and other languages.