Show Surely you already know how to say a few numbers in Spanish, but have you mastered them? And no, we’re not asking you if you have a PhD in Mathematics. We’ll probably agree that numbers are an incredibly important part of our lives. Most of us don’t need to do any complicated math on a regular basis, unless that happens to be part of your job description. But we all still use numbers all the time, whether you like them or not. We all look at the clock a few times a day, we go shopping and look at the prices of products… We all need to count things sometimes as well. We can count our money, or how many cartons of milk we have left, or how many steps there are from the entrance of your house to your room, or maybe how many days there are left until a special occasion. We don’t need to be experts, but we all need numbers and we all use them. We realize they’re not the most exciting topic when learning a language, but if we all use them when we speak our native language, what makes you think you won’t need them in Spanish? In today’s article, we’re going to teach you everything you need to know about using numbers in Spanish, including how to count, write, and pronounce Spanish numbers from 1 to 100 and higher! Table of Contents
1. Saying NumbersNumbers 0-9Let’s start with the basics. Normally one of the first things you learn in Spanish is how to count from 0 to 10, so you might already know this, but we’ll show it here just in case. (They are, after all, some of the most important numbers in learning Spanish!)
Numbers 10-99It’s time to start learning some more numbers. Just so you know, once we reach number 16, numbers start following a clear pattern, even though it might seem confusing at first. This is why first we’ll begin by explaining the hardest one, and then we promise the next numbers will be incredibly easy to understand. Dieciséis (16) is nothing more than diez y seis (“ten and six”) put together. You might notice it’s not written exactly the same way, but that happens for a reason. Let’s analyze these changes step by step:
Now that we’ve seen the hardest one, let’s look at the rest of the numbers higher than 16. Do you notice that it’s always ten, or twenty, or thirty, followed by y and another number? This is the pattern we were talking about. With tens and twenties, these words are written together like we saw previously and might show a few changes, but once we reach the thirties, they start being written separately, so it becomes a lot clearer.
Numbers up to 1000There are a few things you need to be careful with:
Now that we know all this, let’s take a look at the list:
Thousands and millionsDid you think learning numbers up to 1,000 wasn’t enough? We got you covered. If, on the other hand, you think this is too much for you, don’t worry. Come back when you’re ready. However, thousands and millions happen to be easier than hundreds, because in this case they do work exactly like in English: number + mil (“thousand”) or millón (“million”). There’s only one thing you need to keep in mind for now: In Spanish, big numbers are broken up with dots, instead of commas. In the list of numbers below we’ll use the English standard so there’s no confusion, but for example, 2,345,392,203 in Spanish would be written 2.345.392.203.
We could keep going, but we won’t, because we need to tell you something more important. We apologize in advance, because this might be confusing, but unfortunately, an American “one billion” isn’t equivalent to a Spanish un billón. Yes, we mean exactly what you just read. Let’s be a little bit more specific:
We’re sure you’re already hoping you never have to refer to these numbers in Spanish, but here’s a specific example: in English, you would say that in the world there are over 7-billion people. However, in Spanish, you would have to say there are over siete mil millones. Ordinal NumbersWhen it comes to ordinal numbers, writing abbreviations is really easy, because they don’t change from number to number like they do in English. All you need to do is write whatever number you need followed by o if it refers to something or someone masculine, or a if it has a feminine reference. For example, in an address, if you want to express that you live on the third floor, in the second apartment, you would need to write: 3o 2a. The first one refers to el piso (“floor”) and the second one to la casa (“house,” but it refers to the apartment).
Following the previous example, 3o 2a would be spelled tercero segunda. 2. Giving Your Phone NumberWhen giving a phone number in Spanish, there are a few different ways you can express these numbers. This shouldn’t come as a surprise, because we’re sure it happens in most languages. You can say them number by number, or two numbers at a time, or three. Because we’re only getting started here, we recommend saying it number by number. Example: Translation: 3. Saying Prices and ShoppingIn Spanish, decimal numbers are expressed with a comma instead of a dot, so we wouldn’t write or pronounce 2.7 (two point seven), but 2,7 (dos coma siete: “two comma seven”). In prices, even though we write it, we generally don’t pronounce the word coma. When shopping in Spain, remember that our currency is euros, like in most European countries. You might notice in the following examples that we always place the € symbol after the number. In the examples below we’ve also expressed two different ways of saying numbers in prices, and they are both equally correct. Between euros and cents it’s optional to say con, which means “with.” To give you a literal translation in English, it would be, for example, “two euros with fifty [cents]).” Moreover, you have the option of indicating the name of the currency, which in this case is euros, or just ignoring it. The same thing goes for the word for “cents,” which is céntimos. Pay attention to the examples. In bold, we’ve marked all the optional words. Example: Translation: Example: Translation: 4. Telling the TimeThere are a few noticeable differences between telling the time in Spanish and in English. For example, you’ll probably find that in the following list, all phrases begin with la or las. In case you don’t know that yet, la is an article that means “the.” To be a little more specific, it’s a feminine article. It’s not that time is feminine or anything, even though the word hora, which means “time,” is feminine, but when we need to say what time it is in Spanish, we’ll always use a feminine article. Because Spanish is a pro-drop language (which means we tend to not use the subject when speaking), we don’t need to start the sentence with a pronoun like in English (“It’s half past five”). We can start with the verb ser in its right conjugation (don’t be scared, it’s actually easy) or directly with the article we just mentioned, followed by the time.
Example: Translation: If you want to learn more about telling the time, check out our How to Tell Time in Spanish video lesson. 5. Saying DatesNotice that in Spanish, just like in most languages (and unlike in American English), we express first the day and then the month. Another difference is that we don’t normally use ordinal numbers, even though it’s still an option; if we want to refer to April 3, we will say tres de abril instead of tercero de abril. As you might have already realized and as we’ll see in the following examples, months and days of the week in Spanish aren’t spelled in capital letters like they are in English. If you don’t know months in Spanish yet, you can find them in our vocabulary list Talking about Months in Spanish, and for other vocabulary related to the days of the week, Talking about Days. Example: Translation: Example: Translation: 6. Basic MathLuckily, these things don’t change from language to language. Could you imagine if sums were different in other languages? That would be chaos. The only thing that changes is the way we express them, both the calculation and the result. 1- SumasExample: Translation: 2- RestasExample: Translation: If you happen to be a big Math fan and you’re interested in learning some more Math in Spanish, check out our Top 10 Must Know Math Words in Spanish video lesson. 7. How SpanishPod101.com Can Help You Learn More SpanishIn your language-learning, Spanish numbers are one of the most important topics you’ll need to learn and memorize. Aside from counting and other uses we mentioned above, you can even use Spanish numbers to learn Spanish pronunciation. Now that you know all numbers in Spanish and how to use them in the most common situations, you’re not going to stop there, right? There’s so much more you can learn at SpanishPod101.com, if you give us a chance. Check out our lessons, podcasts, articles, and vocabulary lists to learn everything you need and more to become fluent in Spanish, the second-most natively spoken language, after Chinese. If you’re interested in learning even more numbers, check out our list of Spanish Numbers. Numbers are the same in Spain and Mexico and only show differences in pronunciation, so feel free to take a look at that list even if you’re learning Spanish from Spain. How do you say the word numbers in Spanish?In case you were wondering how to say “numbers” in Spanish, it's números.
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