Learning numbers in German is one of the fun things I have done lately. Some of the them sound similar to english. Once the number gets bigger the more words it has though not hard to construct. Let’s have some fun.
Saying Zero in German (0)
I am sure you have come across the word ‘null‘ to mean there is nothing in the count. This is the same in German though the pronunciation is different. Instead of ‘a’sound like in ugly, it’s ‘u’ sound like in glue.
One to Twelve (1-12)
- eins
- zwei
- drei
- vier
- fünf
- sechs
- sieben
- acht
- neun
- zehn
- elf
- zwolf
Thirteen to Nineteen (13-19)
This section is just a combination of the above.
13
This number has 10 and 3. To name it, you start with the last number then followed by the first.
3 is drei and 10 is zehn if you can remember. This makes dreizehn.
Practise the rest
Just do the same thing I have been doing and put your answers on the comment section for marking 😊.
NB: There are two exceptions though. In sechs (6), you will have to remove the s and in sieben (7) you need to remove the en.
Zahlen von 20 bis 29: Numbers from 20 to 29
20 is Zwanzig. Just like in ten you will have to say the last number first followed by the tens number like ten or 20 or even 30 and so on. The difference however is that you add ‘and’ which is ‘und‘ in German in between them.
Einundzwanzig is 21. Again here the s is lost. We didn’t see this in 11 because it used an irregular word elf.
For the other 10’s, you just need to add zig just like in 20. Instead of Zwei it’s Zwan then zig. Again don’t worry that rules ate changing, the rest is easy. 70 is siebzig, 80 is achtzig and so on. Fun is it?
Note that dreißig for 30 has a change in the letter. To say zig, you pronounce tsish.
When you get to 100, there is only one change but the rest remain the same. einhundert or can be just hundert just like in English. Sechshundert and so on. When you get to 1000 it’s eintausend or just….. tausend. You are sharp!
2000 would be Zweihundert.
231 would be Zweihunderteinunddreißig. Note the changes like the ß instead of Z. As seen on the previous blog, there are four additional alphabets in German which can be used interchangeably depending on where the word in question is being used. We will look at this later. In this case you start with the farthest number on the left then followed by the previous system of naming. In English it whole have been Twenty one but in German its one and Twenty.
76 would be sechsundsiebzig. What other number do have in mind? Let me know on the comment section.
Wasn’t that easy?
From one hundred onwards, the Zwei, sechs and sieben remains. For one billion for example OT would be eine Milliarde. For rest, this is the only change that happen
Two million-Zwei millionen
1 Million – eine million
Zehn tausend – 10,000
Zwanzig Tausend-20,000
Hunderttausend-100,000
3627-dreitausendsechshundertsiebenundzwanzig
1864- achtzehnhundertvierundsechzig
Get yourself a German keyboard by downloading the German version of the current one to avoid word auto-corrects while practising this.
A scientist who writes about her daily experiences. Most are drafts but some are publicly shared, like this one you just read.
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