Counting in Portuguese (Portugal)
Language overview
Portugues (português) is a romance language from the Indo-European family. Originating from Portugal, it has evolved into different dialects and creoles in Brasil, in five African countries (Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, São Tomé and Príncipe) as well as in Macau and East Timor. Regulated by the Lisbon Science Academy (Academia das Ciências de Lisboa), it is roughly spoken by 10 million people in Portugal alone and 170 million people in Brasil where Brazilean Portuguese is in use with mostly spelling and pronunciation differences.
Portuguese (Portugal) numbers list
- 1 – um
- 2 – dois
- 3 – três
- 4 – quatro
- 5 – cinco
- 6 – seis
- 7 – sete
- 8 – oito
- 9 – nove
- 10 – dez
- 11 – onze
- 12 – doze
- 13 – treze
- 14 – catorze
- 15 – quinze
- 16 – dezasseis
- 17 – dezassete
- 18 – dezoito
- 19 – dezanove
- 20 – vinte
- 30 – trinta
- 40 – quarenta
- 50 – cinquenta
- 60 – sessenta
- 70 – setenta
- 80 – oitenta
- 90 – noventa
- 100 – cem
- 1,000 – mil
- one million – um milhão
- one billion – mil milhões
- one trillion – um bilião
Portuguese (Portugal) 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 zero [0], um [1], dois [2], três [3], quatro [4], cinco [5], seis [6], sete [7], oito [8], nove [9], dez [10], onze [11], doze [12], treze [13], catorze [14], quinze [15]. Sixteen to nineteen are regular numbers, i.e. named after the ten and the digit, and written phonetically: dezasseis [10 and 6], dezassete [10 and 7], dezoito [10 and 8], dezanove [10 and 9].
- The tens have specific names based on the digits roots except for ten and twenty: dez [10], vinte [20], trinta [30], quarenta [40], cinquenta [50], sessenta [60], setenta [70], oitenta [80] and noventa [90].
- The same applies for the hundreds: cem [100] (plural centos), duzentos [200], trezentos [300], quatrocentos [400], quinhentos [500], seiscentos [600], setecentos [700], oitocentos [800], 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 quarenta e seis [146]), but not thousands and hundreds, unless the number ends with a hundred with two zeroes (e.g.: dois mil e trezentos [2,300], but dois mil trezentos e sete [2,307]). E is also used to link thousands and units (e.g.: quatro mil e cinco [4,005]).
- European Portuguese uses the long scale system in which we alternate between a scale word and its thousand. Thus, we have milhão (106, million), mil milhões (109, billion), bilião (1012, trillion), mil biliões (1015, quadrillion), trilião (1018, quintillion), mil triliões (1021, sextillion)…
Write a number in full in Portuguese (Portugal)
Let’s move now to the practice of the numbering rules in Portuguese (Portugal). 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
Portuguese grammar: a complete, concise and practical reference
by Sonia Celegatti Althoff, editors sonia-portuguese.com (2008)
Portuguese Verbs And Essentials of Grammar: A Practical Guide to the Mastery of Portuguese
by Sue Tyson-Ward, editors Passport Books (1996)
[ Amazon.com, Kindle - Amazon.com]
Portugués fácil
editors Espasa (2009)
Gramática portuguesa
editors Espasa (2008)
Guide de conversation portugais
by Jürg Ottinger, editors Assimil (2010)
[ Amazon.com]
Pratique du portugais de A à Z
by Maryvonne Boudoy, Maria-Helena Araújo Carreira, editors Hatier (2004)
[ Amazon.com]
Manuel de langue portugaise
by Paul Teyssier, editors Klincksieck (2002)
[ 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.