A1 · The finishing touches
Numbers, dates and times
einundzwanzig, am dritten Mai, halb drei
Three systems that are regular, and each of which runs in the opposite direction from English.
German numbers say the units before the tens: einundzwanzig is literally "one and twenty". This survives up to 99 and inside larger numbers, so 1984 is neunzehnhundertvierundachtzig — nineteen hundred, four and eighty. It is entirely regular and it costs listeners real effort, because a spoken telephone number cannot be written down in the order it arrives.
Dates use ordinal numbers with an ending: der dritte Mai, and am dritten Mai when saying when. Ordinals up to 19 end in -te, from 20 upward in -ste, with erste, dritte, siebte, achte as the irregular ones.
And the clock counts forward to the next hour, not back from the last one. Halb drei is half past two: it is half way to three, not half of three. This is the single time-telling mistake that will actually make somebody miss an appointment.
Die Form
| units first | 21 — einundzwanzig |
| hundreds | 101 — hunderteins |
| a year | 1984 — neunzehnhundertvierundachtzig |
| the third | der dritte, am dritten |
| half way to the next hour | 14:30 — halb drei |
Die Regeln im Einzelnen
From 21 to 99 the unit is named first, joined by und, written as one word.
siebenundvierzigforty-seven
Ordinals take -te up to 19 and -ste from 20, and they are adjectives, so they decline.
am zwanzigsten Junion the twentieth of June
halb names the hour being approached.
Wir treffen uns um halb sieben.We are meeting at half past six.
Years stand without a preposition, or with im Jahr.
Er kam 1998 nach Berlin.He came to Berlin in 1998.
Genauer hingesehen
Why the units come first
It is old, it is shared with Dutch and with older English — "four and twenty blackbirds" is the same pattern — and English simply gave it up while German kept it. There is no rule to learn beyond the order itself, but there is a habit worth building: when somebody dictates a number, wait for the whole group of two before writing anything.
Larger numbers are read in blocks of the same shape. Dreihundertsiebenundvierzig is three hundred, then seven and forty. The block order is the same as English; only what happens inside each pair of digits is reversed.
Ausnahmen und Sonderfälle (2)
-
eins stands before a noun
it behaves as an article and takes an ending: ein, eine, einen.
ein Buch, aber: Nummer einsone book, but: number one
The bare form eins is only used when counting or naming the number itself.
-
a date is written with digits
the day comes first and a full stop marks the ordinal.
am 3.5.2024on 3 May 2024
3.5. is the third of May, never the fifth of March.
Woran man es erkennt
- und
- halb
- viertel
- am
- um
- erste
- dritte
- hundert
- tausend
Beispielsätze
Ich bin dreiunddreißig.I am thirty-three.
Das kostet vierhundertfünfzig Euro.That costs four hundred and fifty euros.
Heute ist der erste September.Today is the first of September.
Der Zug fährt um Viertel nach acht.The train leaves at a quarter past eight.
Sie hat am achten Geburtstag.Her birthday is on the eighth.
Noch 6 Beispielsätze
zweiundsiebzigseventy-two
Der wievielte ist heute?What is the date today?
Es ist zehn vor halb neun.It is twenty past eight.
Sie wohnt im dritten Stock.She lives on the third floor.
Wir fahren am fünfzehnten.We are going on the fifteenth.
Der Kurs beginnt um neun Uhr.The course starts at nine.
Besonderheiten (2)
-
Written as one word, however long
German numbers below a million are written as a single word: <z>siebenhundertdreiundneunzigtausendvierhundert</z> is one word and correct. Only <z>Million</z>, <z>Milliarde</z> and above are separate nouns, and they are capitalised.
-
The comma is the decimal point
German writes <z>3,5</z> for three and a half and reads it <z>drei Komma fünf</z>, while a full stop or a thin space groups thousands: <z>1.000</z> is a thousand. A price copied without checking this is wrong by a factor of a thousand.
Die typisch deutsche Falle
Aufgepasst
German counts towards the coming hour and English counts away from the one just past, so every halb is a full hour off if it is read as English. The same logic runs through Viertel vor and, regionally, through Viertel drei for a quarter past two. When an appointment matters, the safe form is the twenty-four hour clock: vierzehn Uhr dreißig cannot be misread.
halb drei is half way to three, so it is 2:30.
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