Practical English: How to write a check

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Hi, my name is Rebecca, and in today's lesson, I'm going to show you how to write a check

correctly and safely in English.

To help us, I've drawn a huge check on the board that you can have a look at as I explain.

So, the main thing to remember is that there are about six different elements that you

need to fill in when you're making out a check.

Now, of course, I've drawn a representative sample of a check on the board.

Many North American checks are like this.

In different parts of the world, checks may be set up in a different way or may have a

different format, but more or less, they will always contain the same elements.

So, even if your check in your country looks a little bit different from this, that's okay.

You'll still have to fill in the same information.

So, let's look at these parts.

So, there are six different pieces of information that you will need to fill in on a check.

Let's start with the first one.

The first one is over here.

This is the date.

Now, the date can be written in different ways in different parts of the world sometimes.

In some parts of the world, an international standard has been established where you have

to write the year first, then the month, and then the day.

So, according to that example, this would be the year 2011, and the month would be the

sixth month, which is June, and the date would be the first.

Sometimes, in order to let you know that that's how they want you to write the information

regarding the date, you might see these letters, YYYYMMDD.

Whenever you see this on a check or on any form of any kind, it means they want you to

write the year, the four numbers of the year, the two numbers of the month, so if it's a

month like June with only one number, you write 06, okay?

And then, the day, alright?

So, that may be the case.

If it's not the case, then you could write like this, June 1st, 2011.

And if you write June 1st, 2011, don't forget to put a comma in between to separate these

two pieces of information, okay?

Alright, so we've finished writing the date.

What do we do next?

We write who we are going to write this check to.

We write the name of a person or a business.

In this case, this is a check that belongs to Mary Doe.

It is Mary Doe's check, so Mary's name and address is often written in this place.

Then Mary is paying this check to someone named John Doe, so it says here, and it will

usually say something like this in English, "Pay to the order of".

That means, pay this person or this business.

This person or business is the payee, okay?

That's spelled like this, okay?

You don't need to write that information on your check, it's just for your knowledge as

So, John Doe is the payee of this check, so we've written the date, we've written the

name of the payee, now we come here to the important part, and we write the amount of

the check in numbers, alright?

So if it's a check in dollars, if the currency is dollars, you might see a little box like

The important thing is when you start to write the numbers, make sure you write the first

number right against the side of the box, because if you write it in the middle, it

leaves space for somebody to add numbers before that, and instead of writing a check for $120.50,

you might end up...

Somebody could fraudulently, somebody could cheat and make that $1,120.

So you want to make sure that you don't allow that to happen.

So write it, start it right here, and also put the dot and put the cents.

So this check is for $120.50.

Sometimes people write it like this, and sometimes they write the cents, 50, and then draw a

line like here, and put a hundred down below.

You have a choice.

Or there might be a particular style that's followed in your country.

Then, we write the same amount, but this time we write the amount in words.

This is to confirm, because sometimes people don't write their numbers very clearly.

So when we write the amount in words, it enables the bank to be sure that that is exactly the

amount that they are supposed to pay.

So here we see 120, and then you should draw a line all the way to the end, again, so that

nobody can add anything.

And then we can see that we've written the cents over here, 50/100.

Also important to start writing your numbers from the left-hand side, so that nobody can

add any other words on this line.

Now we come to the fifth part of your check, which is - well, actually, let's go here first.

This is most important.

This is the signature.

So this is the way that the bank knows that you have issued this check and nobody else

You should try to have a consistent signature.

You should try to sign your check in the same way, with the same signature every time.

Now, some people ask me, "If I write a check in English, do I have to write my signature

Well, no, you don't have to.

Sometimes people have their own... or often people have their own signatures in their

own languages, and that's perfectly fine, as long as that's the signature that you have

recorded at the bank when you signed a sample card to show your signature.

In fact, sometimes signatures are almost illegible.

"Illegible" means we cannot really read them.

Some people write their signature out so you can actually read the words.

Like here, we can kind of see "M. Doe" for "Mary Doe", but some people could just do

this, and that could be their signature.

As long as they can reproduce that every time, that would qualify as their signature.

So, again, if you have to write your signature, you do not have to come up with an English

version of your signature, okay?

And then at the bottom on the check, we see some other things.

Here is the name of your bank.

This could be somewhere else on the check, and these are some of the coding numbers and

routing numbers, and your account number, and so on.

You don't have to do anything with that.

Usually they are printed on your check, right?

What you might want to do sometimes is to fill out a little note to yourself to remind

you what this check was about, so that sometimes on a check, there's a little space for a memo,

which is a little note to yourself to remind you why you paid John Doe $120.50.

In this case, it was for computer repair, okay?

So again, these are the basic elements of writing a check in English.

Let me now give you a few other safety precautions so that you don't make mistakes, and so nobody

else can do anything illegal with your check.

So one way to avoid mistakes or avoid anybody doing anything fraudulent with your check

is to use capital letters, because it's harder to change capital letters, so that is often

advised by the banks.

So you might want to write this information in capital letters.

Again, start writing your numbers at the far left, as I explained.

Also, make sure you draw a line after the numbers all the way to the end, so that nobody

can write any more information or words there.

Also, you want to make sure to sign consistently.

Always use the same signature, whatever that signature is that you have registered with

This might seem obvious.

Don't write blank checks.

What do we mean?

Don't sign blank checks.

What do I mean by that?

Sometimes you're planning to give a check to somebody, but you don't know exactly the

name of the business, so maybe when you're getting ready, you just sign it and say you

put it in your pocket and you say, "I'm going to fill in the name of the person or business

when I get there."

That's actually very dangerous, because if you lose that check along the way, then anybody

can fill in their name as the payee and take that check to your bank and deposit it.

Only sign your check after you have filled in the payee name, and then it's a much safer

And also, sometimes when you go to the bank in many countries, if you want to withdraw

cash for yourself, people are sometimes asked to fill out a check to themselves.

So when you do that, if you're just using the check to withdraw cash, just make sure

that you write here to write your name.

Do not write here to cash.

So if Mary Doe wanted to withdraw cash using a check, she should write, she should sign

it Mary Doe, and the payee would also be Mary Doe.

It should not say to cash, because again, if you lose that check or drop that check

somewhere, anybody can take that check and try to withdraw your money.

And of course, most important, when you write a check, try to make sure you have money in

Okay, two small points before we close.

One is many years ago, I worked actually in a bank before I started teaching, and I realized

that one of the most misspelled numbers is this one.

How do you say this?

Well, you say this as 40, but the question is how do you spell it?

And you can jot it down or say it out to yourself.

This is the correct spelling of the number 40.

Many people misspell it by writing out F-O-U-R, so make sure you don't do that.

The number 40 is F-O-R-T-Y.

And the last point is that if you need any help in knowing how to write out the numbers

in words, you could also refer to one of our videos on our website.

Our website is www.engvid.com.

There you'll find a lesson, another lesson that I have recorded earlier called "Saying

Numbers", and that will help you to know how to say or write out the number.

And also, you could do a quiz on this subject and many other topics in English.

So, all the best with your writing of checks and with your English.

Thank you very much.

Oh, one last point.

How do you actually spell the word "check"?

Let me ask you.

Which of these is correct?

Which of these is the correct spelling of the word "check"?

Well, actually, both.

Both are correct.

This first one is normally used in the United States, and the last one is more the British

So, you might see both in different places, depending on where you are.

That's it for now.