kymmenen euroa "ten euro"). Sentti is problematic in that its primary meaning in colloquial language is "centimeter". Thus, the officially recommended abbreviation of sentti is snt, although Finnish merchants generally use a decimal notation (for example 0,35 €). Slang terms: In Helsinki slang, a common nickname for euro is ege. In Tampere slang Eero, a common male name, may be used for euro. French In French, the singular is un euro (masculine). The official plural is the same as the regular plural euros. The Académie française, which is regarded as an authority for the French language in France, stated this clearly, following French legislation in this regard. In France, the word centime is far more common than cent and is recommended by the Académie française. Centime used to be a hundredth of the French franc which is now called centime de franc. The word cent (plural cents, both pronounced to avoid the confusion with cent (100) pronounced ) is the official term to be used in the French-language version of community legislation. Before its use in relation to the euro, the word "cent" (pronounced as in English, ) was best known to European Francophones as a hundredth of a dollar (U.S., Canadian, etc.) French-speaking Belgians use cent more often than centime because centime coins for the Belgian franc (worth, on 1 January 1999 about three U.S. cents) rarely circulated (only a 50 centime coin was still being issued) and because of the influence of Dutch and English, which are more commonly used in Belgium than in France as a result of Belgium's language diversity. German Plural: In German, Euro and Cent are used as both singular and plural when following a numeral, as is the case with all units of measurement of masculine (e.g. Meter, Dollar) or neuter gender (e.g. Kilo[gramm], etc.). However, when talking about individual coins, the plurals Euros and Cents are used. The only other marked case is the genitive singular, which is (des) Euros or, alternatively, des Euro. Pronunciation: The beginning of the word Euro is pronounced in German with the diphthong , which sounds similar to , the 'oi' in the English word "oil". The spelling of the word Cent is not well adapted to German spelling conventions because these strive to avoid ambiguous letter-sound correspondences. Initial letter C is often used in loanwords and corresponds to various pronunciations depending on the language of origin