Numbers 1 · f7c1817be508d80f480bccf40490099e
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, which literally translates to it gives.
Es gibt vier Bücher.There are four books.
Literal: It gives four books.
Es gibt einen Mantel.There is a coat.
Literal: It gives a coat.
Careful not to say phrase Da ist… ‑ that’s used to point out a location!
Talking Teens
Similarly to English, the numbers thirteen through nineteen end with the word 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!
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!