German Numbers 20–100 (Counting to 100)
After this lesson you can say any number up to a hundred — including the backwards ones like einundzwanzig.
Do this first: Numbers 0–20
German Numbers 20–100 (Counting to 100)
German says the small number first: five-and-twenty for 25. It sounds backwards for about a week, and then it does not.
German says the small number first: five-and-twenty for 25. It sounds backwards for about a week, and then it does not.
20
↓
zwanzig
irregular
The letter 20 becomes zwanzig. For example: irregular.
The video for this lesson is being made. Here is the idea in the meantime.
Watch · 0%
Kulturnotiz
There is a long-running German campaign, Zwanzig-Eins, arguing that the reversal should be abolished because it causes real errors in medicine and finance — a doctor mishearing 74 as 47 is not a hypothetical. It has gone nowhere, but its existence tells you something: even native speakers find this hard, so read numbers back when they matter. Nobody will think less of you for it.
Common questions
+Why are German numbers backwards?
They preserve an old Germanic order that English also used — "four and twenty blackbirds" is the same construction. English modernised; German did not.
+How do I stop mishearing them?
Listen for the und. Whatever comes before it is the unit and whatever comes after is the ten. And when it matters, read the number back — Germans do this too.
+Why is thirty dreißig and not dreizig?
A historical spelling that stuck. It is the only ten written with ß, and it is worth noting explicitly because everything else in the set uses -zig.
+Are these written as one word?
Yes — einundzwanzig, siebenundvierzig, all one word however long. German compounds numbers the way it compounds nouns.