Number(de)
Ein Sechstel reicht.
What is there?
In English, we’d say There is a dog! or There are twenty books!
In German, you can use the phrase Es gibt...
Es gibt vier Bücher. There are four books.
Careful not to say phrase Da ist… ‑ that’s used to point out a location! For example, Da ist irgendwas.
Die Nummer/Zahl
Similarly to English, the numbers thirteen through nineteen all end with ‑zehn. Notice that there are some letters dropped from sechs and sieben!
drei three
dreizehn thirteen
vier four
vierzehn fourteen
fünf five
fünfzehn fifteen
sechs six
sechzehn sixteen
sieben seven
siebzehn seventeen
acht eight
achtzehn eighteen
neun nine
neunzehn nineteen
Culture and Numbers
When counting with your fingers, Germans start with their thumb for eins! If you raise your pointer finger for one, a German person might automatically read it as zwei!
Eins, zwei, drei, vier… One, two, three, four…
When giving a number over the phone, German speakers use the word zwo instead of zwei. That way, it doesn’t rhyme and get confused with the similar‑sounding drei!
die Hälfte(half)
die Summe(sum)
Ich habe fünf Geschwister, drei Schwestern und zwei Brüder.
I have five siblings, three sisters and two brothers.
Warum isst du dreizehn Tomaten?
Why do you eat thirteen tomatoes?
Zwölf sind ein Dutzend.
Twelve are a dozen.
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