KnowledgeHive

Numbers come up a lot in conversation, and that doesn’t change just because you’re speaking another language. Whether you’re ordering a certain number of pretzels or asking how many turns you have to make to get to the bathroom, you’ll run into situations when knowing numbers will come in handy as you learn German. To help you out on your next trip to Germany, here’s a quick guide to count to 100 in German.

We could just list all of the numbers one through one hundred, but that wouldn’t explain the logic behind it. So instead, we’ll start with the numbers you need to know, and then show you how it works.

Counting From Zero To Twenty In German

Why count to 20 instead of 10? Well, like many languages, the teens work differently. In English, for example, “eleven” would technically make more sense if it was called “ten-one” to mirror “twenty-one.” In German, a similar thing happens.

zero — null
one — eins
two — zwei
three — drei
four — vier
five — fünf
six — sechs
seven — sieben
eight — acht
nine — neun
ten — zehn
eleven — elf
twelve — zwölf
thirteen — dreizehn
fourteen — vierzehn
fifteen — fünfzehn
sixteen — sechzehn
seventeen — siebzehn
eighteen — achtzehn
nineteen — neunzehn
twenty — zwanzig

The Rest Of The Tens

thirty — dreißig
forty — vierzig
fifty — fünfzig
sixty — sechzig
seventy — siebzig
eighty — achtzig
ninety — neunzig
hundred — hundert

Putting It All Together

German numbers are pretty straightforward, but they differ from English in one way. Instead of the tens coming before the ones (ninety-seven), the ones come before the tens (siebenundneunzig, or literally “seven-and-ninety”). The word und in the middle is German for “and,” which comes up a lot in numbers. And German is famous for combining words into larger words, so numbers can indeed look pretty long when written out. If you put the spaces into the words in your head, it can be easier to read.

As you get to larger numbers, the pattern is more predictable. The number 783, for example, is siebenhundertdreiundachtzig (literally, “seven hundred, three-and-eighty”). Once you’ve got the basic numbers down, the only real mistake you have to avoid is saying something like siebzigundvier (seventy and four) instead of vierundsiebzig. Once you get the hang of it, it’s as easy as eins, zwei, drei.