Numbers (1 - 100)

42, 155, 32 and 5.

Easy, right? Why did you even check this blog entry? You know all the numbers!
Ah well ok, let's be fair. Maybe it's not that easy after all. But you can literally count on me here, I'll show you how German numbers work.

Gladly numbers are a pretty logical and systematical thing. Once you got the system it's an easy game. Let's go to the basic numbers first. Sorry, you'll have to learn these by heart if you don't want to be scammed at the local flea markets ;)

0 - Null
1 - Eins
2 - Zwei
3 - Drei
4 - Vier
5 - Fünf
6 - Sechs
7 - Sieben
8 - Acht
9 - Neun
10 - Zehn

That's not difficult, right? I'm sure you can learn these guys quickly. I strongly recommend you to make sure to know those numbers really really well. If you learn them by counting them up repeatedly like "one, two, three, four, ..." you might encounter some difficulties when it comes to independent single numbers. I learned the chinese numbers in this "counting" way. This way I was able to learn the numbers quickly, but when  somebody asked me what a 7 sounds like in chinese then I had to count "yi, er, san, si, wu, liu, qi" to know that the seven is qi.
So be smarter than I was - learn those numbers independently and don't just learn them by counting. You may also solve simple math problems like 3 + 4 = 7 --> Drei plus Vier gleich sieben
This may help you to get to know them a little better. ;)

11 - Elf
12 - Zwölf
13 - Dreizehn
14 - Vierzehn
15 - Fünfzehn
16 - Sechzehn
17 - Siebzehn
18 - Achtzehn
19 - Neunzehn

Ah, what do we have here? They already look a little familiar, right? Till now they're actually pretty similar to the English numbers. four-teen = vier-zehn; nine-teen = neun-zehn
Even twelve and zwölf sound a bit similar, like some distant relatives.

Still can't get enough of German numbers? It's going to get real German now: German numbers above twenty follow a different concept than English numbers, but see for yourself.

20 - Zwanzig (that's still ok)
21 - Einundzwanzig (it's really just one single word)

22 - Zweiundzwanzig
23 - Dreiundzwanzig
24 - Vierundzwanzig
25 - Fünfundzwanzig
26 - Sechsundzwanzig
27 - Siebenundzwanzig
28 - Achtundzwanzig
29 - Neunundzwanzig
30 - Dreißig
40 - Vierzig
50 - Fünfzig
60 - Sechzig
70 - Siebzig
80 - Achtzig
90 - Neunzig
100 - Hundert (or: Einhundert)

 In German the low numbers (in 21 to 99) are spoken first.

English:
twenty - three (20 - 3)

German:
drei und zwanzig (3 und 20) (but it's actually just one word, so you write dreiundzwanzig in case you want to write it)
"und" means "and" so the number is literally "three and twenty".

Not so difficult, right?
If you payed close attention then you might have noticed that all those zero-numbers like 20, 40 and 60 end by "zig", except for Dreißig, that's simply because Dreizig would sound stupid. It's same with Sechzehn and Siebzehn. Saying Sechszehn and Siebenzehn would sound very odd.

From twenty on the numbers (up to 100) always follow the same logic, i.e. 32 is Zweiunddreißig.

Down below you can check if you understood the concept. There are three numbers. Think for yourself how to say those numbers in German. You can see the solution when marking the line.

55 - Fünfundfünfzig (solve me)

78 - Achtundsiebzig (solve me)

36 - Sechsunddreißig (solve me too)

Everything correct?
Feel free to leave me a comment and have fun with the German numbers.

Indefinite Articles

Indefinite articles work similar to definite ones. The article you need to use depends on the gender of its noun. It works as the following:

As you can see there are only 2 indefinite articles. Male and neutral nouns share "ein", while "eine" is used for female nouns only. Girls really like to be special, so they got their own article! Too bad that even potatoes and cucumbers are female in German while girls are actually neutral. (You can find further explanation concerning "grammatical gender" at the last half of this article)

You can also negate the indefinite articles which looks like the following:

Ich habe keine Katze. - I've got no cat.
Ich habe eine Katze. - I've got a cat.

Keine is not just used to negate female nouns, it's also required for negating the plural. Be careful, because the use of "kein" and "keine" is much more limited than the use of the English "no". There's another way you can put it.

 

I hope you'll enjoy your brandnew articles. Feel free to leave me a comment and have a nice day!