What you’ll be able to do
After this lesson, you will understand German numbers when you read them on price tags, timetables, appointment letters and news articles. You will recognise clock times, calendar dates and quantities without translating in your head. That means you can read a bus schedule, understand a rent figure in a flat listing, and pull every number out of a short news article at A1 level.
The idea
German numbers follow clear patterns once you know the building blocks. Cardinals (one, two, three) are the foundation. From them, you build clock times, dates and prices. The two things that feel unusual at first are the word order in compound numbers and the way Germans say “half past”. Both become automatic after a little exposure.
For cardinal numbers, learn 1 to 12 first. Then notice that 13 to 19 end in -zehn (like zehn, ten). Multiples of ten from 20 upwards end in -zig. The crucial difference from English: in compounds like 21, 32 or 99, the smaller number comes first and is joined by und (and). So 21 is einundzwanzig — literally “one and twenty”.
For clock time, Germans use the 12-hour system in daily life and the 24-hour system in official contexts. “Half past” works differently: halb zwei means 1:30, not 2:30. Think of it as “halfway to two”. For dates, the order is day, then month, then year — written with dots, not slashes. The ordinal numbers (first, second, third) appear in dates like der 5. März (the fifth of March).
See it in German
- Ein Kaffee kostet 2,50 Euro. (A coffee costs 2.50 euros.)
- Die Wohnung kostet 850 Euro im Monat. (The flat costs 850 euros a month.)
- Der Bus kommt um 7 Uhr 15. (The bus comes at 7:15.)
- Der Zug fährt um 14 Uhr 30. (The train leaves at 14:30.)
- Es ist halb drei. (It is half past two. / 2:30.)
- Heute ist der 12. Oktober. (Today is the 12th of October.)
- Mein Termin ist am 3. November um 9 Uhr. (My appointment is on the 3rd of November at 9 o’clock.)
- Dreiundzwanzig Leute warten im Büro. (Twenty-three people are waiting in the office.)
- Das Buch kostet neunundneunzig Euro. (The book costs ninety-nine euros.)
- Der Kurs beginnt am 1. September. (The course begins on the 1st of September.)
Read it in the wild
Now put this into practice with a real text. On this site, every news article has an A1–A2 German version with a vocabulary box beside it. Your task: open one A1 article and pull out every number you find — prices, times, dates, ages, quantities. Write each one down and say what it means in English.
Start with a short A1 article on a topic you already know something about. That way, you will know 95 to 98 per cent of the words, which is the threshold where reading actually builds vocabulary. Scan for digits, number words and time expressions. Check yourself: did you catch zwei and 2 both? Did you spot halb and work out the time? This is the skill that makes timetables, bills and official letters readable.
Common mistakes
- Getting compound numbers backwards. You write wanzigundeins instead of einundzwanzig. The unit always comes first. Say the ones, then und, then the tens.
- Misreading halb. You think halb drei means 3:30. It means 2:30. halb drei is halfway to three o’clock.
- Confusing decimal commas and points. German uses a comma for decimals and a point (or space) for thousands. So 1.500 is one thousand five hundred, and 1,50 is one point five (or one euro fifty).
- Writing dates in the wrong order. You write 3/11 meaning March 11. In German, 3.11. means the 3rd of November. The day comes first.
- Forgetting the ordinal ending in dates. You write der 5 März instead of der 5. März (or der fünfte März). Dates need the ordinal form, usually shown by a point after the digit.
Where you are now
This is lesson 18 of 49, in Phase 3: Everyday Needs. You have just moved from Saying No in German: Nicht vs Kein into the language of numbers, time and money. Next, you will use these skills directly in Shop, Order Food and Handle Prices in German. If you want the full picture of how reading builds your German, return to the hub article How to Learn German by Reading: Your Complete Roadmap.
