German Numbers

German Cardinal Numbers

German Numbers are easy to learn, cardinal numbers are a piece of cake if you understand the logic behind them, from 0 to 12 you will find unique words, that you just need to memorize as is. 13 to 19 are composed words meaning (3- 10) for 13 (dreizehn), (4-10) for 14 (fierzehn).(check the table below). For 16 and 17 (sechzehn instead of sechszehn) and (siebzehn instead of siebenzehen) So now you can easily count to 20.

The logic that numbers from 21 to 99 is the opposite of English, for example in English we say: “twenty one” for 21, in German we say “one and twenty”, note that it’s not only read the opposite way, but also there is an extra “and” which is in German “und”, and all numbers are connected (einundzwanzig).

From 100 on, “und” is not used between numbers

It’s easy to master this your first day if you look at the table above and read the notes following it carefully.

German Ordinal Numbers

Once you have mastered the cardinal numbers, you will have no problem at all learning the German ordinal numbers, because they simply add -te to the cardinal numbers. Some small exceptions are in red font in the table below, one thing that you should know is that ordinal numbers are just like adjectives, so they may take different endings depending on the case used in each specific situation. Please check the adjectives section for more information.

First, second, third, etc., are ordinal numbers, usually coming before a noun. They can be written as 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. The ordinal numbers are in most cases created by simply adding a suffix to a cardinal number. Numbers from 1 to 19 add -te, and numbers 20 and above add -ste. Exceptions are 1 (erste) and 3 (dritte) whose ordinals are based on a changed root, 7 (siebte), which drops the -en before adding the ordinal suffix -te and 8 (achte) which adds only an -e because the number already ends in -t. Ordinal numbers may also be expressed in writing by including a period after a number.

German Cardinal numbers are used more often than ordinal numbers; therefore they need more attention, so try to memorize them by heart. Make sure to check our Learn German page, which contains several lessons that might help you in your learning process.

I hope the content of this page was useful to you, and that you learned some German Numbers, numerals etc...