Counting in Galician

Language overview

Forty-two in Galician Galician (galego) is a romance language from the Indo-European family. It is spoken in Galicia, an autonomous community of Spain where it is co-official with Spanish (Castillan). Galician counts about 3 million speakers.

Galician numbers list

  • 1 – un
  • 2 – dous
  • 3 – tres
  • 4 – catro
  • 5 – cinco
  • 6 – seis
  • 7 – sete
  • 8 – oito
  • 9 – nove
  • 10 – dez
  • 11 – once
  • 12 – doce
  • 13 – trece
  • 14 – catorce
  • 15 – quince
  • 16 – dezaseis
  • 17 – dezasete
  • 18 – dezoito
  • 19 – dezanove
  • 20 – vinte
  • 30 – trinta
  • 40 – corenta
  • 50 – cincuenta
  • 60 – sesenta
  • 70 – setenta
  • 80 – oitenta
  • 90 – noventa
  • 100 – cen
  • 1,000 – mil
  • one million – un milhom
  • one billion – un bilhom
  • one trillion – un trilhom

Galician numbering rules

Now that you’ve had a gist of the most useful numbers, let’s move to the writing rules for the tens, the compound numbers, and why not the hundreds, the thousands and beyond (if possible).

  • Digits and numbers from zero to fifteen are specific words, namely cero [0], un (feminine unha) [1], dous (feminine dúas) [2], tres [3], catro [4], cinco [5], seis [6], sete [7], oito [8], nove [9], dez [10], once [11], doce [12], trece [13], catorce [14], and quince [15]. Sixteen to nineteen are regular numbers, i.e. named after the ten and the digit, and written phonetically: dezaseis [10 and 6], dezasete [10 and 7], dezoito [10 and 8], dezanove [10 and 9].
  • The tens have specific names based on the multipliers digit root, except for ten and twenty: dez [10], vinte [20], trinta [30], corenta [40], cincuenta [50], sesenta [60], setenta [70], oitenta [80], and noventa [90].
  • Hundreds are formed by prefixing the plural form of the hundred word (cen, plural centos) with the multiplier digit, except for one hundred itself: cen [100], douscentos [200], trescentos [300], catrocentos [400], cincocentos [500], seiscentos [600], setecentos [700], oitocentos [800], and novecentos [900].
  • Tens and units are linked with e (and), as in trinta e cinco [35], as well as hundreds and tens (e.g.: cento e corenta e seis [146]), but not thousands and hundreds, unless the number ends with a hundred with two zeroes (e.g.: dous mil e trescentos [2,300], but dous mil trescentos e sete [2,307]). E is also used to link thousands and units (e.g.: catro mil e cinco [4,005]).
  • Galician uses the short scale naming convention where every new word greater than a million is one thousand times bigger than the previous term. For example, un milhom is 106 (one million), un bilhom is 109 (one billion in the US), and un trilhom is 1012 (one trillion in the US).

Write a number in full in Galician

Let’s move now to the practice of the numbering rules in Galician. Will you guess how to write a number in full? Enter a number and try to write it down in your head, or maybe on a piece of paper, before displaying the result.

Books

Diccionario Gallego-Castellano Diccionario Gallego-Castellano
by , editors Nabu Press (2010)
[Amazon.com Amazon.com]

Gramática elemental del gallego común Gramática elemental del gallego común
by , editors Galaxia (1976)
[Amazon.com Amazon.com]

Romance languages

Asturian, Catalan, Corsican, Eonavian, French, Friulian, Galician, Gallo, Italian, Jèrriais, Ladin, Latin, Lombard (Milanese), Occitan, Picard, Portuguese (Brazil), Portuguese (Portugal), Proto-Indo-European, Romanian, Romansh, Sardinian, Spanish, and Venetian.

Other supported languages

As the other currently supported languages are too numerous to list extensively here, please select a language from the full list of supported languages.