Counting in Spanish

It's never a bad idea to know how to do some counting in Spanish. I would highly recommend if you are traveling to Spain to try and learn some numbers as it will come in handy. Many Spaniards speak good English, however, I think spending a few minutes to learn some basic Spanish words and numbers will only enhance your experience in Spain. One thing to note about Spanish numbers it that they put dots where we put comma’s and comma’s where we put dots e.g. 1.000 is one thousand and 1,00€ is one euro. Also numbers ending in one agree in gender with noun they precede and thus veintiuno changes to veintiun coches or veintiunas mesas.

Try memorizing the first twenty Spanish numbers.

One – uno

Two – dos

Three – tres

Four – cuatro

Five – cinco

Six – seis

Seven – siete

Eight – ocho

Nine – nueve

Ten – diez

Eleven – once

Twelve – doce

Thirteen – trece

Fourteen – catorce

Fifteen – quince

Sixteen – dieciséis

Seventeen – diecisiete

Eighteen – dieciocho

Nineteen – diecinueve

Twenty – veinte

*Note that after 15 we are saying ten and six, ten and seven, and so on until twenty. Now notice below we will be saying similar to English twenty and one, twenty and two.

Twenty-one – veintiuno

Twenty-two – veintidos

So once you remember counting in Spanish one through twenty you only have to remember thirty, forty, fifty, and so on adding one, two, three etc. in between. So…

Thirty – treinta

Forty – cuarenta

Fifty – cincuenta

Sixty – sesenta

Seventy – setenta

Eighty – ochenta

Ninety – noventa

One hundred – cien

*When we are saying more than one hundred cien changes to ciento until we get into the thousands.

One hundred and one – ciento uno

One hundred and two – ciento dos

*Also notice that there is no “and” between ciento and uno or dos. That will be true for any number directly following or preceding cientos. “and” is only required as the last digit.

One hundred twenty five – ciento veinte y cinco

*Now notice that one hundred to nine hundred are pretty close to one through nine in Spanish with the exception of five hundred.

Two hundred – doscientos

Three hundred – trescientos

Four hundred – cuatrocientos

Five hundred – quinientos

Six hundred – seiscientos

Seven hundred – setecientos

Eight hundred – ochocientos

Nine hundred – novecientos

*One other thing that makes Spanish numbers different from English is 200 to 900 agree in gender so if they precede a feminine noun they would change to “as” for example dos cientas puertas.

From one thousand on up it is pretty simple in that it is one through nine hundred and ninety nine preceding mil. The only two major things to take note of is Spaniards do not say twelve hundred they pronounce the whole thing correctly mil doscientos. So I was not born in nineteen seventy eight I was born one thousand nine hundred seventy eight or mil novecientos setenta y ocho.

One thousand – mil

Two thousand – dos mil

Ten thousand – diez mil

One hundred thousand – cien mil

*When counting in Spanish to one billion Spaniards say one thousand million or mil millones. So billion or billon means a trillion. I learned this culture lesson with my Spanish family when my roommate and I argued with them that there were one billion people in India only to find out that what they thought we were saying was one trillion.

Learn common Spanish phrases here