Numbers, currency, and measurements

How Rime automatically expands numbers, currency, ranges, measurements, phone numbers, and Roman numerals into spoken form.

Rime expands numbers, currency, ranges, and measurements into their spoken form automatically. Most formats work without any preprocessing — just write naturally.

For a tour of text normalization across all categories, see Text normalization. For specific patterns Rime doesn’t expand cleanly, see Pre-normalizing text.

Numbers

Format	Example	Reads as
Cardinals	123	one hundred and twenty-three
Cardinals with commas	2,022	two thousand and twenty-two
Large cardinals	10000, 1.5 million, 3M, 450K	ten thousand; one and a half million; three million; four hundred fifty thousand
Scientific notation	1e6, 2.3e9	one million; two point three billion
Approximators	~300, >1000, <0.1, ±5, 100+	approximately three hundred; greater than one thousand; less than zero point one; plus or minus five; one hundred plus
Negatives	-23	negative twenty-three
Decimals	0.75, .001	zero point seven five; zero point zero zero one
Ordinals	1st, 2nd, 21st, 100th	first; second; twenty-first; one hundredth
Fractions	1/2, 3/4, 5 1/2, 2 2/5	one half; three quarters; five and a half; two and two fifths
Years	2022, 1998	twenty twenty-two; nineteen ninety-eight

Insert spaces between digits to force digit-by-digit reading: 4 0 reads as “four zero” (not “forty”). For longer alphanumeric IDs and codes, use spell() instead.

Currency

Format	Example	Reads as
Symbol + amount	$5.99	five dollars ninety-nine cents
Comma-separated	$1,000	one thousand dollars
With decimals	$1,045.96	one thousand and forty-five dollars, ninety-six cents
Pounds, euros, yen	£728,641, €70-€72	expands with currency word
Scale shorthand	$5M, $1.2B	five million dollars; one point two billion dollars

Supported symbols: $, €, £, ¥. Scale abbreviations K, M, B, bn are recognized.

Ranges

Ranges with hyphens or en-dashes between numeric values read as “X to Y,” with shared units on the right: 13-50, 35-58 mph, 49-56 °C, 78-84%, 67-77 mg.

Measurements

Category	Examples
Length / mass / volume	12km, 5 mi, 330 ft, 15cm, 5kg, 7lb, 12 oz, 3mg
Temperature	0°C, 98°F, 15°
Speed / power / percent	60mph, 120kW, 95%

A space between number and unit (330 ft) is slightly more reliable than the tight form (330ft). Use the space when you can.

Phone numbers

US and international formats both work natively, with parentheses, hyphens, or spaces as separators.

Format	Example	Reads as
US with parens	[phone]	two one three, five five five, nine two seven four
US with hyphens	213-555-9274	two one three, five five five, nine two seven four
Spaced digits	5 5 5, 7 7 2, 9 1 4 0	five five five, seven seven two, nine one four zero
International	[phone]	plus one, two one two, five five five, four eight zero seven
International with parens	([phone]	plus one, four one five, two zero three, seven seven zero four

Roman numerals (in context)

Roman numerals expand when they appear after a recognized context word: Henry VIII, Louis XIV, Chapter XV, Act III Scene II, Super Bowl LVIII. Isolated Roman numerals without a context word usually pass through unchanged.

Known gaps

A few specific patterns aren’t reliably expanded — most commonly very long comma-separated numbers (10,000,000), non-dollar currency shorthand (€900K), the m ambiguity (7m/s), uncommon technical units (kWh, psi), and isolated Roman numerals. For the full list and a drop-in prompt template to handle them, see Pre-normalizing text.

Related

• Symbols and percentages for standalone $, %, &, #
• Dates and times for years and clock times
• Addresses, URLs, and emails for ZIP codes
• Spell function for forced letter-by-letter reading of IDs, account numbers, and codes