Numbers 1 to 100 in German: one-and-twenty

The numbers 1 to 100 in German put the units before the tens. Twenty-one is einundzwanzig, "one-and-twenty", and ninety-seven is siebenundneunzig, "seven-and-ninety". Every number up to 100 is written as a single word. Below are all the numbers from 1 to 100, the rules that produce them, and which ones German films say most.

Updated 14 October 2026 · 4 min read

German numbers 1 to 100

	German		German
1	eins	51	einundfünfzig
2	zwei	52	zweiundfünfzig
3	drei	53	dreiundfünfzig
4	vier	54	vierundfünfzig
5	fünf	55	fünfundfünfzig
6	sechs	56	sechsundfünfzig
7	sieben	57	siebenundfünfzig
8	acht	58	achtundfünfzig
9	neun	59	neunundfünfzig
10	zehn	60	sechzig
11	elf	61	einundsechzig
12	zwölf	62	zweiundsechzig
13	dreizehn	63	dreiundsechzig
14	vierzehn	64	vierundsechzig
15	fünfzehn	65	fünfundsechzig
16	sechzehn	66	sechsundsechzig
17	siebzehn	67	siebenundsechzig
18	achtzehn	68	achtundsechzig
19	neunzehn	69	neunundsechzig
20	zwanzig	70	siebzig
21	einundzwanzig	71	einundsiebzig
22	zweiundzwanzig	72	zweiundsiebzig
23	dreiundzwanzig	73	dreiundsiebzig
24	vierundzwanzig	74	vierundsiebzig
25	fünfundzwanzig	75	fünfundsiebzig
26	sechsundzwanzig	76	sechsundsiebzig
27	siebenundzwanzig	77	siebenundsiebzig
28	achtundzwanzig	78	achtundsiebzig
29	neunundzwanzig	79	neunundsiebzig
30	dreißig	80	achtzig
31	einunddreißig	81	einundachtzig
32	zweiunddreißig	82	zweiundachtzig
33	dreiunddreißig	83	dreiundachtzig
34	vierunddreißig	84	vierundachtzig
35	fünfunddreißig	85	fünfundachtzig
36	sechsunddreißig	86	sechsundachtzig
37	siebenunddreißig	87	siebenundachtzig
38	achtunddreißig	88	achtundachtzig
39	neununddreißig	89	neunundachtzig
40	vierzig	90	neunzig
41	einundvierzig	91	einundneunzig
42	zweiundvierzig	92	zweiundneunzig
43	dreiundvierzig	93	dreiundneunzig
44	vierundvierzig	94	vierundneunzig
45	fünfundvierzig	95	fünfundneunzig
46	sechsundvierzig	96	sechsundneunzig
47	siebenundvierzig	97	siebenundneunzig
48	achtundvierzig	98	achtundneunzig
49	neunundvierzig	99	neunundneunzig
50	fünfzig	100	hundert

The rules, in order

1 to 12 are single words and have to be learned: eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs, sieben, acht, neun, zehn, elf, zwölf. Elf and zwölf are the same words as English eleven and twelve.

13 to 19 are the unit plus zehn: dreizehn, vierzehn, fünfzehn, sechzehn, siebzehn, achtzehn, neunzehn. This is the English pattern, thir-teen, four-teen.

The tens end in -zig: zwanzig (20), vierzig (40), fünfzig (50), sechzig (60), siebzig (70), achtzig (80), neunzig (90). Thirty is the exception, with ß: dreißig.

From 21, it is unit + und + tens, in one word: einundzwanzig (21), zweiunddreißig (32), achtundvierzig (48).

Three spellings that catch people out

Eins becomes ein inside a bigger number: einundzwanzig, not einsundzwanzig.
Sechs loses its s in 16 and 60: sechzehn, sechzig. But it keeps it in 26: sechsundzwanzig.
Sieben loses its en in 17 and 70: siebzehn, siebzig. But it keeps it in 27: siebenundzwanzig.

Hearing them the right way round

The order is the real difficulty, and it is a listening problem more than a speaking one. When a German says vierundfünfzig, an English speaker hears "four" first and writes a 4, when the number is 54.

Two habits help. Write the second digit first, leaving a gap for the one that comes after. And practise with phone numbers and prices, where the numbers come fast. English used to count the same way, "four and twenty blackbirds", and the teens still do: in fourteen the four comes first.

Germans know the order causes trouble on the phone. Zwei and drei sound alike down a bad line, so zwo is often said for two; it is rare in subtitles, at 1.5 per million words.

Which numbers do German films say most?

Counted in German film and television subtitles, per million words:

Number	Word	Per million words
1	eins	269.9
2	zwei	785.2
3	drei	447.1
4	vier	201.0
5	fünf	214.0
6	sechs	143.8
7	sieben	88.3
8	acht	94.5
9	neun	54.7
10	zehn	146.3

Zwei is said 2.9 times as often as eins. That is partly because eins is only the counting form: before a noun "one" is ein or eine, which are also the words for "a". After that the order follows the counting order, with the two exceptions that turn up in every language we counted: five is said more than four, and ten more than seven, eight and nine. Round numbers get used for approximations, fünf Minuten, zehn Jahre. German adds a small third exception of its own: acht comes in just ahead of sieben.

Pronunciation notes

Z is "ts": zwei is "tsvy", zehn "tsayn", zwanzig "TSVAN-tsikh".
V is "f": vier is "feer".
Ü and ö are rounded vowels English lacks, in fünf and zwölf.
The ending -ig is said with the soft ch of ich in standard German: zwanzig ends like ich.
Dreißig: ß is a plain s sound.

How to learn them

Learn 1 to 12 and the tens by heart. That is 20 words.
Say 21 to 99 as "unit-and-tens" out loud until the order stops feeling backwards.
Have someone read you prices and write them down. It is the listening that takes practice.

The numbers are in the most common German words, and the German course, Verbavia (our own course), teaches them in sentences, free on the web. For the other everyday set, see the days of the week in German. German numbers are also where the longest German words begin: any number below a million is written as one word. French has a different oddity: numbers 1 to 100 in French.

Numbers are most often needed for dates, and the months are in months of the year in German.

Sources

The table of 1 to 100 is generated by rule by scripts/frequency_reference.py, which checks itself against a list of the forms most often got wrong before it writes anything.
The counts are from OpenSubtitles 2018 (Lison, P. & Tiedemann, J., 2016, aclanthology.org) through Hermit Dave's FrequencyWords lists, content licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, github.com, and are printed from the script's output rather than typed.

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