Ch 1 · Lesson 31Italian · Chapter 1 · Lesson 31 · Grammar primer
Cento, mille, primo: big numbers and dates
and with no word for a, , , to , and dates with the plain number except .
The short version
Italian dates are cardinal, except the first
.
Why?Hide
uses the plain number three, not an ordinal, and that is the rule for every date except one: the first of the month takes the ordinal, , never . English uses an ordinal for every date, so the cardinal is the habit to build.
Hundreds, thousands, a million
| Number | Italian | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | | . - A hundred years. |
| 200 | | . - Two hundred euros. |
| 1,000 | | . - A thousand times. |
| 2,000 | | . - Two thousand people. |
| 1,000,000 | | . - A million euros. |
Three rules hold this together:
andtake no word for a: never.has a plural of its own,-:,tremila.is a noun, so it takesand joins its noun with.
Italian also writes the decimal with a comma: 2,50 € is two euros fifty. Big numbers covers prices, years, millions and billions in full.
Ordinal numbers: primo to decimo, then -esimo
First to tenth are words of their own, and they agree like any -o adjective:
| English | Italian | English | Italian |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1st | | 6th | |
| 2nd | | 7th | |
| 3rd | | 8th | |
| 4th | | 9th | |
| 5th | | 10th | |
Past tenth, ordinals are built: drop the cardinal's final vowel and add -esimo.
| Cardinal | Ordinal | English |
|---|---|---|
| | 11th |
| ventesimo | 20th |
| | 100th |
| ventitreesimo | 23rd |
Numbers ending in -tré and -sei keep the final vowel, and -tré loses its accent. Built ordinals agree too: ventesima , the twentieth time.
Dates: cardinal, except for the first
Italian says the date as plus a cardinal number plus the month:
| Italian | English | Why |
|---|---|---|
| the 3rd of March | cardinal |
| the 20th of April | cardinal |
| the 1st of May | the first takes |
.- My birthday is the third of March..- Today is the first of May.
Months stay lowercase. Days, months and seasons covers the rest of the calendar.
Mistakes English speakers make
| Wrong | Right | Why |
|---|---|---|
| ventiuno | | the ten drops its vowel before |
| ventiotto | | and before |
| the accent is part of the spelling | |
| dicisette | | a and a doubled s at the join |
| , | | no word for a before either |
| duemille | | the plural of is |
| is a noun, so it takes | |
| the first is the one ordinal date | |
| age takes | |
| ventiesimo | ventesimo | drop the vowel before -esimo |
| months are lowercase |
Going further: The whole system on one screen and the rest of the guide, when you want them. This lesson does not need them.
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Lesson 31 of 40 in this chapter