How do you say Billion in German?

If you want to read the news, talk about money, or understand global statistics, you need to know how to say billion in German. It’s a word that pops up in economics, tech, population counts - and arguments about government budgets.

The word is die Milliarde. It’s feminine, and the plural is die Milliarden. If you’re still wrapping your head around when to use die, my gender video lesson makes the whole system easy to grasp.

Milliarde is one of the 1000 most frequently used nouns in German, and it’s often used to express scale - of money, people, or time.

Examples in all four cases:

Nominative:Die Milliarde wurde gespendet.The billion was donated.

Accusative:Sie investierten eine Milliarde Euro.They invested a billion euros.

Dative:Mit einer Milliarde kann man viel bewegen.You can do a lot with a billion.

Genitive:Die Hälfte der Milliarde geht an Schulen.Half of the billion goes to schools.

Where you’ll hear Milliarde:

• eine Milliarde Euro/Dollar - one billion euros/dollars

• sieben Milliarden Menschen - seven billion people

• Milliardär - billionaire

• Milliardengeschäft - multi-billion deal

• Milliardenverlust - billion-euro loss

• Milliardenhilfe - financial relief in the billions

Typical verbs: investieren, verlieren (lose), spenden (donate), erreichen (reach), umsetzen (generate revenue)Adjectives: hoch, gigantisch, global, staatlich, geschätzt