Numerals

Ordinal numbers

Ordinalzahlen

Ordinal numbers are used for ordering, dates (especially days of the month) and in enumerations. They are inflected in the same way as adjectives, that is, for case, gender and number.

Construction of ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers are created by adding the suffix -te (for numbers less than 20) or -ste (for numbers from 20 upwards) to the cardinal number. Some numerals have an irregular form such as eins 👉 erste (einste). For numerals from 10 upwards, only the last part of the numeral is inflected, e.g. 13, drei + zehn 👉 dreizehnte (drittzehnte / drittzehn).

Ordinal numbers are written in lower case
  • Translation
  • first class
  • Translation
  • 5th of May
Numeral as a noun

When an ordinal numeral is used as a noun, we write it with a capital letter.

  • Translation
  • He was the first to complete the task.
The table presents some sample ordinal numbers
# Numeral
1 erste
2 zweite
3 dritte
4 vierte
5 fünfte
6 sechste
7 siebte
8 achte
9 neunte
10 zehnte
11 elfte
12 zwölfte
13 dreizehnte
14 vierzehnte
15 fünfzehnte
16 sechzehnte
17 siebzehnte
18 achtzehnte
19 neunzehnte
20 zwanzigste
21 einundzwanzigste
22 zweiundzwanzigste
30 dreißigste
40 vierzigste
50 fünfzigste
60 sechzigste
70 siebzigste
80 achtzigste
90 neunzigste
100 (ein)hundertste
101 (ein)hundert(und)erste
201 zweihundert(und)erste
500 fünfhunderste
1000 (ein)tausendste
1001 (ein)tausend(und)erste
2000 zweitausendste
1 000 000 millionste
2 000 000 zweimillionste
1 000 000 000 milliardste
1 000 000 000 000 billionste

Applications

Expressing the order of items
  • Translation
  • Today is my first day at work.
  • Translation
  • The second-to-last episode was the best.
Expressing dates
  • Translation
  • The 25th of December is a public holiday.
Enumerations
  • Translation
  • One is healthy firstly by eating well, secondly by exercising regularly and thirdly by having a good social environment.