Shopping & Numbers 100+
Shopping & Numbers 100+
Past one hundred, Spanish numbers keep building additively, the same way English does past a hundred — the real news in this lesson is cien vs. ciento, a small split with no English counterpart.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Cien vs. ciento
cien dólares (exactly 100) but ciento veinte (120) — the form changes once you add anything after it
one hundred dollars, one hundred twenty — 'hundred' never changes shape either way
Spanish shortens cien to cien only when it stands alone or directly before a noun; the moment you add units after it, it lengthens back to ciento (ciento uno, ciento veinte). English 'hundred' has no equivalent shortened form — it's identical whether it's exactly 100 or 120.
Hundreds agree with the noun's gender
doscientos dólares (masc.) / doscientas personas (fem.) — the hundreds word itself changes
two hundred dollars, two hundred people — 'hundred' stays the same regardless of what's being counted
From 200 upward, Spanish hundreds words (doscientos, trescientos...) agree in gender with the noun being counted, just like an adjective would. This is a genuinely new habit — in English, no number word ever changes for the gender of what it's counting, because English nouns don't have grammatical gender to agree with in the first place.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- one hundred
- English
- one hundred one
- English
- two hundred
- English
- five hundred
- English
- one thousand
- English
- how much does it cost?
- English
- the price
- English
- cheap
- English
- expensive
- English
- the store