Deutsch · A1 · vocabulary · 4 minutes

Numbers 0–100

Build prices, ages, phone numbers, and times from reusable number blocks.

Understand the choice

German reverses the spoken order of compound two-digit numbers. Hear the unit first, hold und, then finish with the tens; prices and addresses make this pattern practical immediately.

Core rule: From 21 to 99, say the unit + und + the tens: vier-und-zwanzig.

Notice it in context

Das Buch kostet vierundzwanzig Euro.

The book costs twenty-four euros.

Vierundzwanzig literally orders four-and-twenty; Euro has no plural ending after a number in this use.

Meine Oma ist siebzig Jahre alt.

My grandmother is seventy years old.

Siebzig loses the -en heard in sieben.

Der Bus kommt um dreißig Minuten später.

The bus arrives thirty minutes later.

Dreißig supplies a duration with plural Minuten.

What to remember

  • Sechzehn drops the s of sechs; siebzehn drops -en from sieben.
  • German writes compound numbers below one million as one word.

Common trap: Do not read 24 as zwanzig-vier. German says vierundzwanzig.

Practice this lesson with recall