English term
A 20-year experience
I would please like to know if it's okay to hyphenate "20-year".
In addition, if another hyphen should be included between "year" and "experience".
Thanks!
| 5 +3 | a 20-year experience |
Caroline Mwaura
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Jul 21, 2017 19:59: Thomas Pfann changed "Language pair" from "Spanish to English" to "English"
Jul 21, 2017 20:00: Thomas Pfann changed "Field (write-in)" from "annual report" to "(none)"
Jul 21, 2017 20:09: Tony M changed "Field (write-in)" from "(none)" to "Basic EN punctuation"
Jul 21, 2017 21:35: philgoddard changed "Level" from "PRO" to "Non-PRO"
Non-PRO (3): Tony M, Thomas Pfann, philgoddard
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Responses
Kenya
Accurate audio/video transcription
Native in: English (Variants: US, UK) 
, Swahili (Variant: Kenyan)
Works in: English
a 20-year experience
If it is, it would be "20 years' experience" with no hyphen.
And, no, you do not need an extra hyphen.
Hope it helps!
Discussion
Two-hour film; 500-page book; 6-hour walk; Five-person family.
It gets messy when you have to refer to something like a five-and-a-half-hour talk, so I try to avoid those kind of structures!
Tony: the hyphen is correct in UK and US English, though it's widely ignored in both.
It's a title in US English about a process that lasted 20 years (and this section compiles a company's milestones).
Thanks for all your responses!
However, there is no justification at all for the second hyphen; the commonest time we find it is with things like "a 5-year-old child".
However, as Jack says, I doubt this would correctly express what you are trying to say here — but we can only tell you that if you explain what it actually is you want to say?