Glossary entry

Italian term or phrase:

milioni di miliardi

English translation:

several billion

Added to glossary by Katharine Prucha
Sep 28, 2005 11:48
19 yrs ago
4 viewers *
Italian term

milioni di miliardi

Non-PRO Italian to English Bus/Financial Other
...il sistema è in grado di gestire milioni di miliardi di operazioni....

How would we say this in English - just "billions"? - thousands of billions? millions of billions (that sounds ridiculous!).

Thanks!

Discussion

Katharine Prucha (asker) Oct 3, 2005:
Thank you all for helping out here - I actually enjoyed reading all your suggestions. In the end, I opted for the simplest solution.

Proposed translations

+2
16 mins
Selected

several billion

I would say
Peer comment(s):

agree Angie Garbarino : yes agree :)
3 mins
agree carly kelly : good suggestion!
8 hrs
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thanks!"
11 mins

many millions

In UK English "milliardo" is a milliard, in American English it is a billion; it can also legitimately be translated by "million" or "thousands" or even "an awful lot (of)".
since they state "millioni di milliardi" it really is an awful lot!! But since it is a business/financial article, I would suggest using "many millions" - although technically it is a "million milliards" (UK) or a "million billion" (USA)
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+2
15 mins

trillions / quintillions

I think trillions id a large enough number to be understood (sort of) and still be overwhelming. Millions of billions are actually "quintillions" (10 to the 18th power).
Peer comment(s):

agree John Walsh : trillions without a doubt
51 mins
agree Peter Cox
2 hrs
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15 mins

a multitude of/countless/an infinite number of

...if you weren't happy with just "billions", which is fine IMO.
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32 mins

millions and billions

trad. di "milioni DI miliardi" (con 6041 riscontri in rete! )
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32 mins

billions of billions

I believe several and many sound too small. Contless/unlimited too vague loosing the impact of the original expression. Trillions, etc, mathematically correct but also a different style.
I agree that millions of billions sounds weird, so let's just pitch in three extra figures :-)
Milioni di miliardi sounds OK in Italian
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55 mins

billions

I'd just leave it at that
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1 hr

thousand billions (10 to 15th power)

a billion (in UK) is a million millions (10 to the 12th power); a thousand billions, then, is 10 to the 15th power (just like "un miolione di miliardi) - and IMHO doesn't sound too ridicolous or offensive to the hear. Since a billion in USA is just a puny thousand millions, I'd add the figure in parenthesis to avoid any doubt.

I think that a vague statement such as "many billions" wouldn't do very well: when speaking of the number of (financial, I gather) operations a system can handle, a 100 or even a 10-fold difference can be rather important in assessing performance.

BTW, both quintilions (10 to 30th power - !!! - by my Concise Oxfor Dict.) and trilions (10 to the 18th power) seem a bit too much to me...
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