German Numbers in Words
Write any whole number from 0 to 999,999 in German as one compound word.
German writes the whole number as one compound word, units before tens.
Key numbers in German
German writes a whole number as one long compound word, with the unit spoken before the tens and joined by und. So 21 is einundzwanzig (literally “one-and-twenty”), 45 is fünfundvierzig, and 345 is dreihundertfünfundvierzig. Numbers up to 999,999 stay a single unbroken word.
How German numbers are built
German number words are agglutinative: instead of writing the parts with spaces, you glue them into one word. The building blocks are the units eins–neun, the special teens elf and zwölf, the -zehn teens, the -zig tens, plus hundert (hundred) and tausend (thousand).
The famous quirk is the order inside 21–99: the unit comes first, then und, then the tens. English says “twenty-one”; German says einundzwanzig — one-and-twenty. When a number ends in 1, the standalone eins drops its s and becomes ein (so 21 is ein·und·zwanzig, never eins·und·zwanzig).
The pieces, in order
To read a number aloud, work left to right — thousands, then hundreds — but always flip the last two digits into unit-before-tens. So 1,234 becomes eintausend + zweihundert + vierunddreißig = eintausendzweihundertvierunddreißig, one continuous word.
- 1 Split off the thousands. For 1,234, the thousands digit is 1 → eintausend. For 2,000 it is zweitausend. (The short form tausend is also used.)
- 2 Add the hundreds. The hundreds digit of 234 is 2 → zweihundert. For 100 use einhundert (or the short hundert); 300 is dreihundert.
- 3 Flip the last two digits. For 34, say the unit first: vier + und + dreißig = vierunddreißig. A round ten needs no und: 30 is just dreißig.
- 4 Glue it into one word. Join every piece with no spaces: eintausend + zweihundert + vierunddreißig = eintausendzweihundertvierunddreißig.
Tricky German number forms
The spellings learners most often get wrong, and the unit-before-tens order.
| Number | German | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| 16 | sechzehn | Drops the -s of sechs — not “sechszehn”. |
| 17 | siebzehn | Clips sieben to sieb- — not “siebenzehn”. |
| 30 | dreißig | Spelled with ß, and drei → drei (not “dreizig”). |
| 21 | einundzwanzig | Unit first: ein + und + zwanzig, and eins → ein. |
| 45 | fünfundvierzig | Five-and-forty — the unit is spoken before the tens. |
| 60 · 70 | sechzig · siebzig | Both clip their unit stem, like 16 and 17. |
Reading the word back
Everything up to a million is written as a single word, which is why German numbers look intimidating on the page — neunhundertneunundneunzigtausendneunhundertneunundneunzig is 999,999. The trick to decoding one is to read left to right but expect the last two digits to be reversed: whenever you hit an und, the word just before it is the ones digit and the word just after it is the tens.
Two spellings trip up almost everyone. dreißig (30) uses the sharp ß, not the -zig ending of every other ten. And eins loses its s in compounds — it is einundzwanzig, einhundert, eintausend — while it keeps the s only when it stands completely alone.