Numbers in Spanish - Part I

[janet leary]

Learning how to count in Spanish is among the most useful things you
can learn. Imagine how many times you'll go shopping in your life,
whether it's to the supermarket or to buy a new pair of shoes; and
imagine how often you encounter numbers on a daily basis, every time
you complete some kind of transaction.
As well as being almost essential to your knowledge of Spanish, the
numbers in Spanish are easy to learn for a couple of good reasons.
First, they follow easy to remember patterns and so you can learn the
entire numbering system fast.
Second, if you are in Spain or Latin America you'll be confronted by
the sound of the numbers every day and quickly be able to internalise
their sounds. That means that you'll be able to recognise the number
as soon as it is spoken and repeat it instantly when required.
Cardinal Numbers: Spanish numbers from 0 to 20
The Cardinal numbers what we use to describe quantity - in other words
one, two, three, etc - as opposed to the ordinal numbers, which are
used to describe order - first, second, third, etc. We take a look at
the numbers from zero to twenty below:
0. cero1. uno2. dos3. tres4. quatro5. cinco6. seis7. siete8. ocho9.
nueve10. diez
11. once12. doce13. trece14. catorce15. quince16. diecis'is17.
diecisiete18. dieciocho19. diecinueve20. veinte
The main things to note here are that numbers ending in one follow the
gender of the following noun and if the noun is masculine uno shortens
to un; for example, veintiuno becomes veinti'n in the masculine (the
accent is added to preserve the emphasis on the u); if the noun is
feminine uno becomes una.
If you practise counting from 1 to 10 and 10 back down to 1, then from
11 to 20 and down again you'll quickly pick the numbers up. If you are
in a Spanish speaking environment and find yourself in a shop, start
to listen to the numbers when you pay - this will help you listen and
understand the numbers as they're being spoken and will allow you to
reproduce those sounds well when you need to speak
them.
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