Spanish Numbers: The Definitive Guide

Before we talk about all of the numbers in the Spanish language, we need to stop and talk about the number one (1).

One is the most interesting number in Spanish because it has three forms, where most numbers have only one or two.

In addition, any number ending in one such as twenty-one (21), seventy-one (71), or two thousand four hundred and sixty-one (2,461) also has three forms.

So, what makes the Spanish number one so special?

When we use Spanish numbers in a sentence, we can either use them like an adjective or a pronoun.

When we switch between these two options, similar to other Spanish words that describe quantity such as algún vs alguno, we need to decide between three forms.

Let’s see this in action.

Firstly, here are a few examples of the number one behaving like an adjective:

English: I have one brother and one sister..
Español: Tengo un hermano y una hermana.

English: We only need one idea for the project.
Español: Solo necesitamos una idea para el proyecto.

Note there aren’t different words for ‘one’ and ‘a’ in Spanish, e.g. ‘una idea‘ could translate as ‘one idea’ or ‘an idea’. We can only distinguish between ‘one’ and ‘a’ or ‘an’ in Spanish through context.

Next, here are some examples of the number one behaving like a pronoun:

English: How many cups do you have?
Español: ¿Cuántas copas tienes?
English: I have one.
Español: Tengo una.

English: How many countries have you lived in?
Español: ¿En cuántos países has vivido?
English: Only one.
Español: Solo uno.

As you can see with this last example, when we want to say ‘one’ and this represents a masculine noun, we need to remember to say ‘uno’.

But, if we have a noun in our sentence, we need to drop the ‘o’ (e.g. ‘un libro’, ‘un artículo’ etc.) And if it is feminine, we don’t need to change forms.

Un vs unos, una vs unas

The last thing we need to discuss before moving on is the plural forms of the number one: unos and unas.

As you saw a moment ago, when we have a large number ending in one, we need to stick with the singular form of one.

For example, the following doesn’t work:

English: There are fifty-one examples in the homework (51). 
Español: Hay cincuenta y unos ejemplos en la tarea. ⊗

So, how then do we use unos and unas?

If we don’t need an exact number, we can use unos and unas for approximations.

There are, in fact, two basic scenarios in which we can use this plural form of one.

The first is for a small and non-exact number, this situation is best translated into English as ‘a few’ or ‘some’.

Here are some examples:

English: We spend a few weeks in the mountains every winter. 
Español: Pasamos unas semanas en las montañas cada invierno..

English: I’m going to have some drinks with friends tonight. 
Español: Voy a tomar unas copas con amigos esta noche.

The second situation in which we can use the plural form of one is for making larger numbers approximate quantities.

We can do this by combining unos and unas with a larger number. This use translates into English as ‘some’ or ‘about’.

For example:

English: I’m only going to wait about twenty minutes (20).
Español: Solo voy a esperar unos veinte minutos.

English: There are about forty questions on the test (40).
Español: Hay unas cuarenta preguntas en el examen.

Note the word order here and how we must put unos and unas before the number we want to approximate.

Now that we have discussed the number one in detail, next let’s look at the numbers between zero (0) and twenty-nine (29).

For any number between thirty and one hundred, apart from multiples of ten, we will need to combine two numbers using the Spanish word ‘y’.

Here is a list of numbers from thirty to ninety-nine:

Note you can see here the pattern with the number one continues.

Here are some examples of these numbers in action:

English: There are forty-four countries in Europe (44).
Español: Hay cuarenta y cuatro países en Europa.

English: Barcelona Football Club plays fifty-one matches in a season (51).
Español: El Fútbol Club Barcelona juega cincuenta y un partidos en una temporada.

English: A normal golf course has eighteen holes with a par of seventy-two strokes (18, 72).
Español: Un campo de golf normal tiene dieciocho hoyos con un par de setenta y dos golpes.

A common application for numbers up to ninety-nine is describing phone numbers. While we can list each digit of a phone number separately in Spanish, it’s common to list phone numbers in double digits.

For example:

English: My phone number is 55 60 31 47 29. 
Español: Mi número de teléfono es cincuenta y cinco, sesenta, treinta y uno, cuarenta y siete, veintinueve.

Notice the use of ‘y‘ in Spanish with numbers up to ninety-nine. It can really help to think about these numbers as ‘forty and four’ or ‘seventy and two’. Thinking this way will also help you understand numbers over one hundred.

When we reach the number one hundred, we find more Spanish numbers, similar to the number one, that have multiple forms.

All of the multiples of one hundred have both a masculine and feminine form.

And, the number one hundred itself has two forms: as the number one hundred on its own or ‘one hundred and something’. I’ll provide some examples below in the section cien vs ciento to show you how this number works.

Here is the list of Spanish multiples of one hundred for talking about any number up to one thousand:

The first and most important thing to discuss for numbers above one hundred is the placement of the Spanish word ‘y‘ (and).

We need to think carefully about where to place the word ‘y’ in three-digit Spanish numbers because it is different from English.

In short, we cannot follow the number one hundred or a multiple of one hundred with ‘y’.

Take the number 135.

In English, we place the word ‘and’ between the 1 and the 35 (one hundred AND thirty-five). But, in Spanish, we already have ‘y‘ between the 3 and the 5 and so we need to avoid adding another ‘y‘ between the 1 and the 3.

So, we need to think differently in Spanish for numbers above one hundred. We need to think “one hundred, thirty and five”.

Moreover, if we don’t have a multiple of ten from thirty to ninety combining with a number from one to nine, we need to drop the ‘y‘ from the number entirely.

For example:

English: Two hundred and nine (209).
Español: Doscientos nueve.

Here are some more examples:

English: One hundred and one dalmatians (101).
Español: Ciento un dálmatas.

English: This book has four hundred and eighteen pages (418).
Español: Este libro tiene cuatrocientas dieciocho páginas.

English: He is one hundred and seventy-nine centimeters tall and weighs seventy-two kilograms.  
Español: Mide ciento setenta y nueve centímetros y pesa setenta y dos kilos.

English: There are two hundred and fifty-three restaurants in the city (253).
Español: Hay doscientos cincuenta y tres restaurantes en la ciudad.

Again note the position of ‘y’ in this last example and the lack of ‘y’ for ‘ciento un’ and ‘cuatrocientas dieciocho’. 

Gender and the multiples of one hundred

In addition to thinking carefully about the word ‘y’ for numbers above one hundred, we also need to think about gender.

For any multiple of hundred, excluding one hundred itself, we need to match the gender of the object we are counting.

Here are some examples:

English: The car is speeding at two hundred and six kilometers per hour.
Español: El coche va a doscientos seis kilómetros por hora. 

English: We have two hundred and fifteen female actors and two hundred and six male actors in our talent agency.
Español: Tenemos doscientas quince actrices y doscientos seis actores en nuestra agencia de talentos.

Note how we have to match ‘doscientas’ with female actors and ‘doscientos‘ with male actors.

Above one thousand, we have a few additional changes that we have to get used to.

With really large numbers, we sometimes have to use the preposition ‘de‘ and we have to switch between singular and plural forms.

We also have a translation problem with numbers like a ‘billon’ and a ‘trillion’ caused by the etymology of these words and a transition that occurred in the 20th century. I’ll explain this in the section below.

Here is the list of numbers above one thousand:

I mentioned earlier that one hundred in Spanish is cien on its own, or ciento + ‘#’ for ‘one hundred and something’.

There is an exception to that rule which occurs when we combine one hundred with other large numbers ending only in zeros.

When we want to say ‘one hundred thousand’ or ‘one hundred million’ in Spanish, we need to use cien.

But, for ‘one hundred and something thousand’ or ‘one hundred and something million’, we have to use ciento.

For example:

English: There are one hundred thousand residents in this town (100,000).
Español: Hay cien mil residentes en este pueblo.

English: The car costs one hundred and twenty-five thousand pesos (125,000).
Español: El coche cuesta ciento veinticinco mil pesos.

Again, as you can see, if we want to follow the number one hundred with anything other than zeros, we need to say ‘ciento‘, otherwise, we need ‘cien‘.

Billions and trillions

For larger multiples of one thousand above one million, we run into a translation problem.

To figure out how to translate the English words ‘billion’ and ‘trillion’ into Spanish, we first need to quickly discuss the history of short and long scales.

Throughout the centuries two forms emerged for naming large numbers above one million: the short and long scales.

If we take the number one following by nine zeros (1,000,000,000), in the short scale, this number is named ‘one billion’, and in the long scale this number is ‘one milliard’ or ‘one thousand million’.

Then if we look at the number one followed by twelve zeros (1,000,000,000,000), in the short scale, this number is named ‘one trillion’, and in the long scale this number is ‘one billion’

The United States started with the short scale in the 1700s while the long scale was being used in British English up until the 20th century. In the 1970s, the UK formally switched to the short scale and most other English-speaking countries followed suit.

However, the rest of Europe as well as most Spanish-speaking countries and regions still use the long scale to this day.

This is why it is helpful to look at the history of the long and short scales to figure out the naming of the larger Spanish numbers and why English and Spanish can be different.

Here are some examples:

English: Eight billion people live on planet Earth.
Español: En el planeta Tierra viven ocho mil millones de personas.

English: Apple has surpassed 2 trillion in market capitalization.
Español: Apple ha superado los 2 billones de capitalización bursátil.

Note that it is possible to find the short scale in use in some Spanish-speaking regions. But for most regions, you’ll find the long scale is more common.

When you want to list the order of a sequence of objects, you’ll need one of the Spanish ordinal numbers (números ordinales).

These numbers allow you to say phrases like ‘first place’, ‘third floor’, or ‘second door on the right’ in Spanish.

But, note there is a really important difference between English and Spanish ordinal numbers:

• The ordinal numbers above 10 (10th) in Spanish are not commonly used in spoken Spanish.

Instead, you will either find a cardinal number (11, 12, 13) in Spanish where we would use an ordinal number in English (11th, 12th, 13th), or you’ll find a rewording of a phrase such that a cardinal number is the best option.

I’ll give some examples below to demonstrate this.

But, first, here is the list of the first ten ordinal numbers in Spanish:

Note that the Spanish ordinal numbers for first (1st) and third (3rd) have three forms like the number one:

• Primer / tercer (masculine adjective)
• Primera / tercera (feminine adjective / feminine pronoun)
• Primero / tercero (masculine pronoun)

Also, note that the remaining ordinal numbers have both a masculine and feminine form.

In addition, you’ll need to keep in mind that when we use these numbers like Spanish adjectives, they have to go before the noun.

Here are some examples:

English: María works on the third floor (3rd).
Español: María trabaja en el tercer piso.

English: José finished second in the race (2nd).
Español: José terminó segundo en la carrera.

English: My house is on the fourth street on the right (4th).
Español: Mi casa está en la cuarta calle a la derecha.

English: The ninth novel in the series is the best (9th).
Español: La novena novela de la serie es la mejor.

English: Which is your car?
Español: ¿Cuál es tu coche?
English: The third one (3rd).
Español: El tercero.

Again, note the matching of gender, as well as the pronoun (tercero) and adjective (tercer) forms.

Next, let’s look at a few of these examples with ordinal numbers above 10.

In this section, we’ll discuss Spanish fractions, multiples, and a controversial aspect of this topic that Spanish mathematicians and linguistics debate, and how we should think about it as Spanish students.

Fractions in Spanish

When it comes to fractions in Spanish, there is a set of new vocabulary that we can use for specific fractions such as ‘a half’ or ‘a third’.

But, there are also a couple of ways that the Spanish language has made things easy for us.

Firstly, just like English, if we want to say ‘a fourth’ or ‘a fifth’ of something, we can simply take the Spanish ordinal number for ‘fourth’ (cuarto) or ‘fifth’ (quinto) and add the article ‘un‘.

But, in addition, we can also use the phrase ‘cuatro veces menos‘ (four times less) or ‘cinco veces menos‘ (five times less) like a division. This can be a handy alternative if we can’t remember the ordinal numbers in Spanish.

That said, phrases like ‘cuatro veces menos‘ can be controversial as linguistics and mathematicians weigh in on their accuracy in certain circumstances.

I’ll provide some examples below in the section on the controversy to highlight how Spanish students should think about it.

But, first, we’ll look at all of our possible options.

Here is the list of the most common Spanish fractions:

As you can see from the table, for smaller fractions than one-seventh it is more common in Spanish to use the phrase ‘(number) times less’ (x veces menos o x veces menor).

For fractions larger than one-seventh, we can use all three forms interchangeably.

For example:

English: We paid a third of what it is worth (1/3).
Español: Pagamos un tercio de lo que vale.
Español: Pagamos una tercera parte de lo que vale.
Español: Pagamos tres veces menos de lo que vale.

That said, Spanish natives will tend to use the forms provided in the table as a preference. This means for larger fractions, they will likely avoid ‘tres veces menos‘.

In addition, if we want to say two-thirds or three-quarters, we can simply replace the ‘un‘ with ‘dos‘, ‘tres‘, or any other number required for the fraction.

For example:

English: We have to give two-thirds of the cake to our neighbors (2/3).
Español: Tenemos que dar dos tercios del pastel a nuestros vecinos.

English: We have three-quarters of gasoline left (3/4).
Español: Nos quedan tres cuartas partes de gasolina.

As I mentioned earlier, there is a controversy here. But it is easier to explain the controversy after we have discussed multiples, which is what we will look at next.

The controversy with fractions and multiples in Spanish

When Spanish mathematicians and linguists look at the phrase ‘tres veces más’, they can argue that there are two mathematical functions here: a multiplier (veces) and an addition (más).

This means that when we use the phrase, it could imply that we take our original size, multiple by three and then add that to the original size, leaving us with an object that is four times the size of the original object, instead of three times.

For example:

Español: Ese edificio es tres veces más alto que mi casa.

Now we could potentially interpret this in two ways in Spanish, and here are the English translations:

1. That building is three times taller than my house.
2. That building is three times above my house (e.g. 4 times taller).

And, to make the problem as clear as possible, if we say my house is 4 meters tall:

• Does ‘tres veces más‘ imply that the building is 12 meters high (3 times my house) or 16 meters high (three house sizes above my house)?

To avoid this problem, mathematicians recommend that we stick to the phrases ‘el doble‘, ‘el triple‘ etc. because then there is no ambiguity.

But, the main problem is that the Spanish words for 8 times (octuple in English), or 12 times, or 24 times bigger aren’t commonly used by natives speakers, similar to English, which means we have to stick with the phrase ‘x veces más‘ above a certain multiple.

So, how should we address the problem as Spanish students?

The first thing to ask is how important is the comparison…

• If you are talking about a large sum of money, or providing an important report where exact quantities matter, it’s probably best to say exactly what the number should be and avoid phrases like ‘cinco veces más‘ or ‘cuatro veces menos‘.
• If, on the hand, you are simply making a comparison for a story where exact quantities don’t matter (e.g. there were 10 times the number of people on the second day, we had to walk 3 times as far, or that was 5 times easier, etc.), then feel free to use any of the phrases provided in the tables above.

So, most Spanish students probably don’t have to worry about this controversy for telling a story or making a general comparison. But, we have had students in our school deal with situations such as construction projects in Mexico, and in that case, exact numbers are essential.

There are a lot of potential applications of Spanish numbers that we could discuss:

• Time
• Calendar dates and years
• Weather
• Age
• Weights and mass
• Height, length, and distances
• Speed
• Quantities
• Prices
• Arithmetic
• Telephone numbers
• Street addresses

But, most of these applications translate well between English and Spanish where literal translations are okay. I’ve also included a number of these applications in examples throughout the article.

So, rather than discuss them all in this section, we are going to focus on the situations where literal translations don’t work well and where we often hear mistakes from Spanish students.

1. Dates

When it comes to Spanish numbers, the most common mistakes we hear from students in our Spanish classes occur around calendar dates.

Firstly, in English, we often refer to dates with ordinal numbers (e.g. the ‘first’ of August, the ‘twenty-fifth’ of May, etc.).

In addition, when we are making plans in English, we always use the preposition ‘on’ (e.g. we are leaving ‘on’ the sixth of June).

In Spanish, we should avoid ordinal numbers for dates and either drop the English preposition ‘on’ or translate it to the Spanish equivalent of ‘the’ (el).

For example:

English: We are going to arrive on the 7th of June.
Español: Vamos a llegar el siete de junio (7).

English: The concert is on the 16th of November. 
Español: El concierto es el dieciséis de noviembre (16). 

So, for calendar dates in Spanish, try to shift your thinking to “we arrive the seven of June” or “is the sixteen of November”.

2. Quantities of people

Another common number application that doesn’t translate well is describing a group of people.

If you want to book a table in a restaurant or refer to the size of your family or friendship group, you need to be careful with this translation.

In English, we often use the phrase ‘there are # of us’ (e.g. there are 4 of us) but in Spanish, we need to avoid a literal translation here.

Often the best translation of a phrase like this will be ‘somos‘ (we are), ‘son‘ (they are), or even just ‘los #’ (the ‘number’).

For example:

English: How many people are there for the booking?
Español: ¿Cuántas personas hay / son en la reserva? 
English: There are six of us (6). 
Español: Somos seis.

English: How many people are in your band?
Español: ¿Cuántas personas son en tu banda?
English: There are four of us in the band (4).
Español: Somos cuatro en la banda.

English: The two of us went on the trip (2).
Español: Los dos fuimos al viaje. 

Note that literal translations are possible here:

English: There are five children in my family. 
Español: Hay cinco niños en mi familia.

But the moment we add the phrase ‘of us’ or ‘of them’, e.g. ‘there are 3 of us’, then we should stick with ‘somos tres’, ‘somos cuatro’, ‘somos cinco’ etc.

Your turn

As you can see this is a big topic and there is a lot to cover.

Like everything I discuss on this blog, you don’t need to master it all in a day.

Instead, your goal should be to take something you haven’t seen before and incorporate it into your Spanish repertoire. Practice it with a friend, add it to your set of flashcards, or use it in one of our Spanish classes,

Then come back and look for something else and repeat the process.

How else can you use Spanish numbers in a sentence?