Numbers 11–100
Numbers 11–100
Dutch numbers turn transparent almost immediately — eleven and twelve are the only irregular ones, much like English's own eleven and twelve, which also don't visibly contain 'ten.'
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
elf and twaalf ≈ English's own eleven and twelve
elf (11), twaalf (12) — don't visibly contain tien ('ten')
eleven, twelve
English eleven and twelve are themselves old fossils (from Old English endleofan and twelf, roughly 'one left' and 'two left [over ten]') that no longer visibly show 'ten' the way thirteen through nineteen do. Dutch elf and twaalf are the exact same kind of irregular leftover — so this pattern isn't new to a Dutch learner, just a fresh pair of words to memorize instead of a fresh concept.
dertien onward: unit + tien, fused into one word
dertien (13 = der- + tien, 'three-teen'), zestien (16 = zes + tien)
thirteen, sixteen
From 13 to 19, Dutch fuses the unit and tien ('ten') into a single word, unit-first — dertien, veertien, vijftien — exactly matching English's own '-teen' pattern (thirteen, fourteen, fifteen). This is one of the most direct, comfortable parallels between the two languages' number systems.
Units before tens from 21 onward — the reverse of modern English
eenentwintig (21 = een + en + twintig, literally 'one-and-twenty')
twenty-one
This is the single biggest habit to unlearn: from 21 up, Dutch says the unit before the ten, joined by en ('and') — eenentwintig, literally 'one-and-twenty'. Modern English says the ten first (twenty-one), though older English used to work exactly like Dutch — Shakespeare's 'four-and-twenty blackbirds' uses the same 'unit-and-ten' order Dutch still uses today. Reading Dutch numbers aloud correctly takes deliberate practice, since the digits appear to a modern English speaker in reverse order from what they'd expect.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
| Dutch | Pronunciation | English |
|---|---|---|
| elf | elf | eleven |
| twaalf | twahlf | twelve |
| vijftien | VAYF-teen | fifteen |
| zestien | ZESS-teen | sixteen |
| twintig | TWIN-tikh | twenty |
| eenentwintig | AYN-en-twin-tikh | twenty-one |
| dertig | DER-tikh | thirty |
| veertig | FAYR-tikh | forty |
| vijftig | FAYF-tikh | fifty |
| zestig | ZESS-tikh | sixty |
| zeventig | ZAY-ven-tikh | seventy |
| tachtig | TAHKH-tikh | eighty |
| negentig | NAY-khen-tikh | ninety |
| honderd | HON-dert | one hundred |