Can I say "total N people" to mean "N people in total"? [migrated]

I often use the expression "total N people/things/etc." to mean "N sth in total", but English is not my native language, and that expression actually comes from translating 1:1 what I'd say in my native language. Are the following, acceptable English sentences?

• I wasted total 100 dollars in that stupid game.
• There are total 100 people in queue.
• Total 10GB of data has been corrupted.

Solution 1:

These are rather unidiomatic.

Better would be

I wasted a total of 100 dollars in that game.

The redundant phrase "a total of" serves to emphasise the amount, and perhaps indicates that perhaps you didn't lose the money in one play. You are including all the times you played the games.

Similarly "a total of 100 people in the queue" would emphasise that we are being inclusive of all people (perhaps we are including babies, for example)

Often, "a total of" is redundant. It can be quite natural at times, especially in spoken English. But you can tighten your written English by removing such phrases.