Counting in Spanish: Cardinal and Ordinal Spanish Numbers

Whether you are visiting a Spanish speaking country on vacation, or simply dealing with a native speaker, counting in Spanish is something that all students need to learn as soon as possible, otherwise, communication is going to be difficult.

Maybe you will experience this when you go to pay for something at a store.

Or perhaps, when you need to tell the taxi driver your address.

It might even be something as simple as making small talk with locals,  with whom you don’t know how to say that you’ll be in their country for x number of days.

You get the point.

Counting in Spanish is something that should be mastered sooner rather than later.

The good news is that once you are aware of the rules (and know the exceptions) to follow, in most cases, Spanish numbers are a piece of cake.

This post will be split into two sections:

• Cardinal numbers in Spanish (1,2,3 etc)
• Ordinal numbers in Spanish  (1st, 2nd, 3rd etc)

Now, let’s start in 3….2….1….

Cardinal Numbers in Spanish

Spanish cardinal numbers (números cardinales) can be both nouns and adjectives, working pretty much as they do in English.

The good news is that for the most part, these numbers translate directly.

(There are specific rules to know, which we’ll cover later.)

For now, let’s look at the below table of numbers, which is self-explanatory.

Number	Spanish	English
0	Cero	Zero
1	Uno/Una/Un	One
2	Dos	Two
3	Tres	Three
4	Cuatro	Four
5	Cinco	Five
6	Seis	Six
7	Siete	Seven
8	Ocho	Eight
9	Nueve	Nine
10	Diez	Ten
11	Once	Eleven
12	Doce	Twelve
13	Trece	Thirteen
14	Catorce	Fourteen
15	Quince	Fifteen
16	Dieciséis	Sixteen
17	Diecisiete	Seventeen
18	Dieciocho	Eighteen
19	Diecinueve	Nineteen
20	Veinte	Twenty
21	Veintiuno	Twenty-one
22	Veintidós	Twenty-two
30	Treinta	Thirty
31	Treinta y uno	Thirty-one
40	Cuarenta	Forty
50	Cincuenta	Fifty
60	Sesenta	Sixty
70	Setenta	Seventy
80	Ochenta	Eighty
90	Noventa	Ninety
100	Cien	One hundred
101	Ciento uno	One hundred & one
200	Doscientos	Two hundred
201	Doscientos uno	Two hundred & one
300	Trescientos	Three hundred
400	Cuatrocientos	Four hundred
500	Quinientos	Five hundred
600	Seiscientos	Six hundred
700	Setecientos	Seven hundred
800	Ochocientos	Eight hundred
900	Novecientos	Nine hundred
1000	Mil	One thousand
2000	Dos mil	Two thousand
100.000	Cien mil	A hundred thousand
1.000.000	Un millón	One million
2.000.000	Dos millones	Two Million

Below are some tips that should make it easier for you to remember Spanish numbers.

1) From 1 to 15, the numbers don’t follow any pattern, which means you need to memorize them (sorry, no shortcuts).

2) Next, you also need to memorize each multiple of ten: veinte (20), treinta (30) cuarenta (40), cincuenta (50), sesenta (60), setenta (70), ochenta (80) y noventa (90).

In case you haven’t noticed, these multiples (with the exception of veinte) use the suffix -nta, and look similar to the smaller numbers e.g. cuatro (4) cuarenta (40) (again, with the exception of veinte)

3) The numbers 16-19 follow a similar structure to English, since you’re going to use the digit “diez” with the other digit. Basically, the formula will be “diez” + y + “digit”.

For example, diez + y + ocho = which contracts to dieciocho. In English, it’s eight + ten = eighteen. (just the other way around).

4) Once we pass 20, the formula is simple. We simply use a multiple of ten (veinte, treinta, cuarenta, etc), add a “y” in the middle, and then the single number (uno, dos, tres etc). For example, 41 = cuarenta y uno.

That wasn’t too bad, was it?

Good.

Now, let’s talk about the number one

We mentioned that Spanish numbers can work as nouns or adjectives.

Luckily, this only affects the number one, and any numbers ending in one (21,31,151 etc)

Let’s see how it works.

If you already covered Spanish articles, then you should know that uno or una means “one”, depending on the gender of the accompanying noun.

It also works fine when used to replace another noun in a sentence.

• I caught one of them – Atrapé uno de ellos
• There was only one left – Solo quedaba uno/a

Un / una is a shortened version of the same, but in the adjective form, meaning it’s used with nouns to indicate how many of them you have.

It can be used the same way as “a/an” in English.

• Atrapé un pez – I caught a fish
• Había veintiúna personas en el autobús – There were twenty-one people on the bus

(side note: without getting into too much detail, you’ll notice that veintiúno & veintiúna changes to veintiún when they come before certain nouns.)

And that’s it.

Remember – you only need to memorize around the first 20 numbers, and for the remainder, you’ll just notice the patterns and exceptions, followed by the multiples of ten or other “milestones” (20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90, 100, 1000 and so on) highlighted above.

Ordinal Numbers in Spanish

While this section is probably less useful, you are bound to come across a situation that requires you to know ordinal numbers in Spanish.

You can think about these ordinal numbers as adjectives, used to express the position that an element can take in any certain list.

Whether you use them as words (first) or numbers (1st), they’ll be used the same away.

Now for the most important part of this section.

Unlike English, the fact that Spanish ordinal numbers work as adjectives means that they must match the number and gender of the noun that you use them with.

For the most part, matching the number/gender of the noun is simple and straightforward.

Simply change the masculine -o ending to the feminine ending -a.

For the plural form, you need to use an added -s.

Let’s see an example of this below.

English	Masculine singular	Feminine Singular	Masculine Plural	Feminine plural
First	Primero	Primera	Primeros	Primeras
Second	Segundo	Segunda	Segundos	Segundas
Third	Tercero	Tercera	Terceros	Terceras
Fourth	Cuarto	Cuarta	Cuartos	Cuartas
Fifth	Quinto	Quinta	Quintos	Quintas

You should know by now that Spanish rules are full of exceptions.

In this case, there is an exception when using the ordinal 1st and 3rd.

When paired with a singular, masculine noun, both of these numbers change to their respective alternatives: primer and tercer.

You can see an example of this below.

• El primer día de la semana es el más importante de todos – The first day of the week is the most important of all

• Vivo en el tercer piso, un gusto conocerte – I live on the third floor, nice to meet you

Ok, we’re almost done here.

Before you leave, I should mention how ordinal numbers in Spanish are written or typed.

In English, these numbers are shortened  (1st, 2nd, 3rd etc), but in Spanish, the same numbers are shortened with something called an ordinal indicator, that matches the gender of the noun.

We use (°) for masculine, and (ª) for feminine.

seen below:

• 1º, 1ª or 1er
• 2º, 2ª or 2do/2da
• 3º, 3ª or 3er
• 4º, 4ª, or 4to/4ta

For correctly writing plurals, you will need to add (os/as) according to the gender of the noun you’re counting.

• 1º or 1os
• 2º or 2as
• 3º or 3os

I’ll be honest with you, this part is widely ignored by the vast majority of Spanish speakers (including me).

While it’s good to be aware of it, but I wouldn’t worry too much about this section.

English	Masculine Spanish	Feminine Spanish
First	Primero / Primer	Primera / Primer
Second	Segundo	Segunda
Third	Tercero / Tercer	Tercera / Tercer
Fourth	Cuarto	Cuarta
Fifth	Quinto	Quinta
Sexth	Sexto	Sexta
Seventh	Séptimo	Sétima
Eighth	Octavo	Octava
Nineth	Noveno	Novena
Tenth	Décimo	Décima
Eleventh	Décimo primero	Décima primera
Twelfth	Décimo segundo	Décima segunda
Thirteenth	Décimo tercero	Décima tercera
Fourteenth	Décimo cuarto	Décima cuarta
Fifteenth	Décimo quinto	Décima quinta
Sixteenth	Décimo sexto	Décima sexta
Seventeenth	Décimo séptimo	Décima sétima
Eighteenth	Décimo octavo	Décima octava
Nineteenth	Décimo noveno	Décima novena
Twentieth	Vigésimo	Vigésima
Twenty first	Vigésimo primero	Vigésima primera
Twenty second	Vigésimo segundo	Vigésima segunda
Thirtieth	Trigésimo	Trigésima
Thirty first	Trigésimo primero	Trigésima primera
Fortieth	Cuadragésimo	Cuadragésima
Fiftieth	Quincuagésimo	Quincuagésima
Sixtieth	Sexagésimo	Sexagésima
Seventieth	Septuagésimo	Septuagésima
Eightieth	Octogésimo	Octogésima
Ninetieth	Nonagésimo	Nonagésima
One hundredth	Centésimo	Centésima
One hundred first	Centésimo primero	Centésima primera
Two hundredth	Ducentésimo	Ducentésima
Two hundred first	Ducentésimo primero	Ducentésima primera
Three hundred	Tricentésimo	Tricentésima
Four hundredth	Cuadringentésimo	Cuadringentésima
Five hundredth	Quingentésimo	Quingentésima
Six hundredth	Sexcentésimo	Sexcentésima
Seven hundredth	Septingentésimo	Septingentésima
Eight hundredth	Octingentésimo	Octingentésima
Nine hundredth	Noningentésimo	Noningentésima
One thousandth	Milésimo	Milésima

It’s unlikely that you’ll need to use many of these numbers.

However, the regular rules apply and if using the larger ordinal numbers, then every digit an ordinal from left to right must respect the gender and number of the noun that it is being used with.

For example:

• 56° will be read or written as Quincuagésimo sexto
• 4637ª will be read or written as Cuatromilésima sexagésima trigésima séptima

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