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-   -   Euro Currency Question. What are Cents called for the Euro????? (https://www.fodors.com/community/europe/euro-currency-question-what-are-cents-called-for-the-euro-992282/)

vnarra Sep 18th, 2013 06:18 AM

Euro Currency Question. What are Cents called for the Euro?????
 
For the Dollar, we call them Cents (100 cents make a dollar). What do we call the change in Euros. (100 ????? makes a Euro)?

Dukey1 Sep 18th, 2013 06:19 AM

Eurocents?

mokka4 Sep 18th, 2013 06:22 AM

I thought just 'cents'. Yes 100 makes a Euro...

Dukey1 Sep 18th, 2013 06:30 AM

Aren't there 100 cents in a GB Pound as well?

flanneruk Sep 18th, 2013 06:36 AM

In English: cents, though more often nothing. "That'll be 2 euro thirty" is how the Irish (who mostly think the plural of euro is euro) usually describe things.

Some languages have a distinctive word: centimes in French, or centesimi in Italian. It might not be a straight translation of "hundredth": it's lepton (pl: lepta) in Greek

But usually the term's not used

BigRuss Sep 18th, 2013 06:42 AM

<<What do we call the change in Euros>>

Shrapnel.

flanneruk Sep 18th, 2013 07:01 AM

So what do you call the change in near-worthless US dollars?

Chaff?

BomDiaLisbon Sep 18th, 2013 07:04 AM

On the coins themselves, from .01 to .50, it says "Euro Cent." But I've never heard anyone say that. Here in Portugal they say "cêntimo."

As usual, Wikipedia has something to say on this topic :)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linguis...rning_the_euro

janisj Sep 18th, 2013 07:08 AM

>>Aren't there 100 cents in a GB Pound as well?<<

not 'cents' - pennies i.e. Pence . . .

adrienne Sep 18th, 2013 07:17 AM

I've heard them called centimes in France, using the old term when the currency was FF but it's not often that you find something to buy for less than E1 so the term is seldom used.

In the US, when you go to the store, how often does someone use the term "cents." I can't remember hearing anyone saying two dollars and thirty two cents. It's 2.32.

hetismij2 Sep 18th, 2013 07:19 AM

Here in the Netherlands the coins are called centen. We don't have 1 & 2 cent coins though.
As far as prices go people would ask for, say, 2euro 50. No need to say cent. If it was less than a euro then they'd ask for 25cent.

We know they mean eurocents.

vincenzo32951 Sep 18th, 2013 07:23 AM

Wow, that flanner is one grumpy, Yank-o-phobic dude.

StCirq Sep 18th, 2013 07:52 AM

In France, cents (no one refers to them as Eurocents).

Pvoyageuse Sep 18th, 2013 08:01 AM

Centimes in France, no cents !

PalenQ Sep 18th, 2013 08:06 AM

anyway you will unlikely see any Euro cents or centimes or whatever as like our pennies folks just seem to throw them away and unlike here prices are not always ending in a 9 - like 59 cents but would be 60 cents, etc.

PalenQ Sep 18th, 2013 08:09 AM

Wow, that flanner is one grumpy, Yank-o-phobic dude>

he/she/it takes after her/his/its flannerpooch2 - an English bulldog - bark is much worse than his/her/it bite but sure does like to bark.

Here Britain under Cameron is going down the tubes and he calls the U S buck near worthless - well that would all be relative - to some rich dude living in a estate in the Cotswold Hills with a gardener, etc he/she/it probably does think of our money as chaff. His/her/its money is probably not in pounds but Swiss francs, stashed in some Swiss bank.

Dukey1 Sep 18th, 2013 08:27 AM

Symptoms are our friends.

Christina Sep 18th, 2013 08:29 AM

I think countries sometimes call them whatever cents were called in that country before, if they had something similar. In France, they are called centimes (I have never heard cents in France myself, but I would guess that's the only other possible alternative). Officially, it is a cent, of course. In Spain, they call them centimos. In Portugal, I think they use centavo.

Pvoyageuse Sep 18th, 2013 08:49 AM

"In France, they are called centimes (I have never heard cents in France myself, but I would guess that's the only other possible alternative)".

It is not : "cents" would not be pronounced as in English. The final "s" being mute, it would be pronounced "cent" like "one hundred" and it would be very confusing.

sparkchaser Sep 18th, 2013 08:52 AM

cent in Germany.

StCirq Sep 18th, 2013 09:02 AM

Where I spend time in France, it's only old people who still call them centimes. Most people under 80 always call them cents, and do the same in writing. Every French check I've received in the last 10 years or so has "cents" written on it on the line where you write the amount of the check.

Pvoyageuse Sep 18th, 2013 09:15 AM

I am not yet 80 ........

"Comme préconisé par la Commission générale de terminologie et le Conseil national de la consommation, pour éviter des homonymies gênantes pour la compréhension et donc l'usage commode de la monnaie, le terme « centime » doit être utilisé en France. D'ailleurs l'article L111-1 du Code monétaire et financier stipule : « la monnaie de la France est l'euro. Un euro est divisé en cent centimes ». Pour les mêmes raisons que pour le nom « euro » (cf. ci-dessus), l'expression « EURO CENT » figure, invariable, (en capitales et sur deux lignes, avec une police de caractères plus grande pour CENT que pour EURO) sur le côté pile des pièces.

Ainsi, sur les pièces, par exemple, de 5 centimes, il est écrit 5 EURO CENT, mais on dit couramment 5 centimes. Pour parler d'une somme de 500,05 €, on ne dit pas cinq cents euros et cinq cents, mais cinq cents euros et cinq centimes. Le mot cent est essentiellement utilisé dans les langues étrangères comme dans « fünfhundert Euros und fünf Cents »."

flanneruk Sep 18th, 2013 10:25 AM

"Wow, that flanner is one grumpy, Yank-o-phobic dude."

While the obnoxious Yank making inane jokes about shrapnel is just expressing an unobjectionable opinion, is he?

I'm not remotely Yankophobic. Or even grumpy. I just proceed on the assumption that Yanks who point out the mote in others' eyes have to expect the odd reminder about the bloody great beam in theirs.

Never works of course. They can hand it out but can't take it when it's handed back.

kybourbon Sep 18th, 2013 11:10 AM

>>>cent in Germany.<<<

Wiki has Germany listed as Euro and Cent while the majority of other countries are listed euro and cent.

>>>What do we call the change in Euros<<<

Many places it is euro, not euros.

sparkchaser Sep 18th, 2013 11:20 AM

<i>Wiki has Germany listed as Euro and Cent while the majority of other countries are listed euro and cent. </i>

Well that's because nouns are capitalized in German, Mr. Pedantic.

caroline_edinburgh Sep 18th, 2013 11:46 AM

This post is tagged Italy so I assume the question is what are they called in Italy - which is centesimi, as previously stated, and the word is certainly used.

Michael Sep 18th, 2013 11:52 AM

I write it out as "cents" in my French checkbook but will say "centimes" when speaking.

hetismij2 Sep 18th, 2013 12:13 PM

Back in the good old days of the Guilder we had nicknames for coins, such as stuiver and dubbeltje. They haven't transferred to the euro though. One, kwartje couldn't anyway since there is no 25c coin.

xyz123 Sep 18th, 2013 12:17 PM

Has the eu de-monetized the 0,01 and 0,02 euro coins? Or is it just a country vy country thing (yes in Holland evidently). And dear friend flanneruk made a comment about in Ireland using euro as the plural of euro...actually from what I understand that's the official line but then the eu says if a language (say English) uses "s" commonly for plural, it's okay to call them euros but many throughout euroland use euro as the plural of euro.

PalenQ Sep 18th, 2013 12:28 PM

My French son who grew up in France says he always called it a "centime d'euro" and many folks did.

hetismij2 Sep 18th, 2013 12:43 PM

It depends on the country whether they use 1 and 2 cent coins. The Dutch had long given up on the Guilder equivalent and quickly dropped the eur coins.
Technically if you offer them in payment the shop must take them, but I have no idea what reaction you would get if you tried.
We get them in change in Spain, and try to get rid of them before heading for home. If we still have a few they go in a charity box at Schiphol.

Peter_S_Aus Sep 18th, 2013 03:08 PM

In Italy, they still use the one and two cent coins - especially in supermarkets.

If the bill comes to 49.99, you will get no change out of a fifty euro note.

But in Venice, if the bill comes to 50.01, you had better make with the one cent.

In Australia, we dumped the one and two cent coins a decade ago - the five cent coin will be next to go, probably is five or ten years time.

colduphere Sep 18th, 2013 03:16 PM

It's hard to make cents of all these different answers.

vincenzo32951 Sep 18th, 2013 03:27 PM

>>I'm not remotely Yankophobic. Or even grumpy. <<
Thanks for the laugh.

xyz123 Sep 18th, 2013 03:31 PM

Boy, things have changed in Italy since the first time I visited in 1971. There was a perpetual shortage of small denomination coins then. I will never forget buying the International Herald Tribune (yes once upon a time long long ago I actually bought newspapers; now I read them on-line each morning). In any event, the paper cost 180 Italian lire. So I handed over 200 lire (or is it lira but it sure wasn't liras) and the shopkeeper gave me two pieces of bubble gum. I started off thinking what a wonderful country. They give you bubble gum when you buy something. Then it dawned on me I hadn't received my 20 liras change. So in my best phoney Italian accent I asked where my 20 liras were (or is it lire?). The shopkeeper pointed at the bubble gum and then it dawned on me the way it worked.

Of course at that time, too the national Italian bank had a shortage of low denomination bank notes. So local banks began printing their own. One small problem. If you got one for say 500 in Venezia from a local bank, they wouldn't take it in Roma.

And you wonder why credit cards aren't the better way to go?

StCirq Sep 18th, 2013 06:51 PM

Of course it's not pronounced like cents in English. But fact is, I'm looking at a French check right now, written to me on a Crédit Agricole check, that says my name, with the date filled in, followed by "deux cents euros et 83 cents." Like every check I've received over the past 10 years. Maybe the standard is "centimes," maybe the banks don't care, but everyone I deal with in France these days says "cents," not "centimes,"' which they consider old-fashioned, which is why the "old" people seem to prefer it, as they did with francs when the EU switched over to euros. My neighbors continued to think and count in francs for quite some time.

Michael Sep 18th, 2013 06:58 PM

<i>but everyone I deal with in France these days says "cents,"</i>

One reason I don't say it is that the word needs to be pronounced with a vocalized "n" and "t", which grates against my pronunciation habits; otherwise it sounds like the word for 100.

StCirq Sep 18th, 2013 08:18 PM

Me too, but I hardly ever have to SAY it.

caroline_edinburgh Sep 19th, 2013 10:21 AM

I'm not sure why so many are still on about France, Germany etc when the OP clearly tagged their question Italy. Like I said, the answer is centesimi - pronounciation for English speakers, ChentESimi.

Dayenu Sep 19th, 2013 01:18 PM

My 2 cents:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Euro


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