German Language Stack Exchange is a bilingual question and answer site for speakers of all levels who want to share and increase their knowledge of the German language. It's 100% free, no registration required.
Sign up to join this community
For instance, 326.35 is written 326,35 in the German system.
So if I had two numbers say 326.35 and 723.98, in the regular decimal system, I would write 326.35, 723.98
But that cannot be used in the German system. So the question is, what can be used there as a number separator?
Simply include a whitespace between the numbers you mean to separate:
U.S.: 326.35, 723.98
Germany: 326,35, 723,98
This map shows which decimal separators are used in which country:
Source: Brilliant Maps
If in countries a period is used as a decimal separator, then the comma is used for groupings of thousands:
It costs £ 12,345,678.90
If not (and if you are not in the middle east region), then it is the other way round:
Es kostet € 12.345.678,90
In both cases there is no space after the comma (also no space after the period). The next character immediately after the separator is always another digit.
But when you put numbers in a list, the list separator consists of two characters, a comma and a space (or a tab or another white character):
These are the earnings of the last 4 month:
9,580.17, 8,845.37, 12,052.04, 10,522.86.Das sind die Einnahmen der letzten 4 Monate:
9.580,17, 8.845,37, 12.052,04, 10.522,86.
It is clear in both cases, and I would say the readability is equal.
But if you want to make it even more clear, you can use a semicolon as separator:
9,580.17; 8,845.37; 12,052.04; 10,522.86
9.580,17; 8.845,37; 12.052,04; 10.522,86
The way we learned it in mathematics in school (in Bavaria, but I think it's the same all over Germany — however it's been quite some time since I was in school, so something might have been changed in between), a semicolon is used in between numbers. For example, take the closed interval [1.5, 2.5]. In Germany, you'd write it as [1,5; 2,5].
Outside of mathematical formulas, however, you wouldn't use semicolons between numbers; so you'd write e.g.: Der Laden führte Seife für 1,50, 2,30 und 2,80 Euro pro Stück.
Note that this also holds for mathematical texts, for example: Die Menge mit den Elementen 2, 3 und 2,3 ist {2; 3; 2,3}.
Here the first comma is a grammatical comma, and therefore is not replaced with semicolon. The set notation however is mathematical, therefore the numbers are separated with semicolons.
Note that in numbers, there's never a space after the comma (neither in normal text, nor in mathematical expressions), while the grammatical comma always is followed by a space.
