Appendix:Danish numerals

Breaking down the rules by the ranges:

• Numbers from 0 to 20: nul, en (et ^[1]), to, tre, fire, fem, seks, syv, otte, ni, ti, elleve, tolv, tretten, fjorten, femten, seksten, sytten, atten, nitten, tyve.
  • 1 is pronounced en if it is the last digit, and the penultimate digit is non-zero. So 31 is enogtredive, not *etogtredive.
  • En and et are interchangeable, when not followed by a power of ten, a noun or a multiple of ten. So 1 + 1 = 2 might be et plus et er lig med to or en plus en er lig med to (or, less elegantly, en plus et er lig med to or et plus en er lig med to). 101 might be pronounced hundredeoget or hundredeogen.
• Starting from 20 (tyve), units go before the tens, as in German numbers, separated by og ("and"). For example, the numbers from 21 to 29 are enogtyve, toogtyve, treogtyve, fireogtyve, femogtyve, seksogtyve, syvogtyve, otteogtyve, niogtyve.
• 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 are "a number times 20", like the French numerals from 80 through 99. This is called the vigesimal system, meaning that 20 (also known in English as the score) is the base unit in counting. For example, 60 is tresindstyve (literally tre-sinds-tyve, "three times 20"). 50 is halvtreds, short for halvtredje-sinds-tyve, "half third times twenty", implying two score plus half of the third score. For example, 75 is femoghalvfjerds, "five-and-half-fourth(-times-twenty)".
  • From 10 to 100: ti, tyve, tredive, fyrre, halvtreds, tres, halvfjerds, firs, halvfems, hundrede.
  • The decimal style "a number times ten" is also commonly used in banking and when relating to other Scandinavian people. The numbers from 20 to 90 are: toti (literally "two tens"), treti, firti, femti, seksti, syvti, otti, niti.
    Until August 2009, Danish banknotes of 50 DKK were labeled femti kroner and on a cheque (or official document) it is written treti, firti, femti, seksti, syvti, otti and niti to complement the amount written in numbers.
  • The vigesimal form leads to very long expressions of the numbers, that have been shortened phonetically. For example, the ancient name of seventy, halvfjerdsindstyve, literally means halv-fjerde-sinde-tyve or half-fourth-times-20 and is shortened in modern Danish as halvfjerds. Few Danish people know the etymology of the words for the multiples of ten.
  • Ordinal numbers may still include the ending sindstyve ("times twenty"), which is no longer included in cardinal numbers. Thus, in modern Danish, 52 is usually rendered as tooghalvtreds from the now obsolete tooghalvtredsindstyve, whereas 52nd is either tooghalvtredsende or tooghalvtredsindstyvende.
• Hundreds are "a number times 100". From 100 to 1000 : (et) hundrede (or hundred), to hundrede, tre hundrede, fire hundrede, fem hundrede, seks hundrede, syv hundrede, otte hundrede, ni hundrede, tusind. For example, 356 is trehundredeseksoghalvtreds ("three-hundred-six-and-fifty").
  • For numbers lower than 200, hundrede is preceded either by et or by nothing, but never by en. So 134 can be pronounced ethundredefireogtredive or hundredefireogtredive, but never *enhundredefireogtredive.
• Thousands are "a number times 1000": (et) tusind, to tusind, tre tusind, ...
• The thousand separator is the apostrophe (') or the full stop (.), but never the comma (,). Danish uses the long scale, so one short scale billion is en milliard, one short scale trillion is en billion, one short scale quadrillion is en billiard, and so on. For example, 1.029.485.034.025 would be pronounced enbillionniogtyvemilliarderfirehundredefemogfirsmillionerfireogtredivetusindfemogtyve, ("one-trillion-nine-and-twenty-billions-four-hundred-five-and-eighty-millions-four-and-thirty-thousand-five-and-twenty").
• Commas are used for decimals, so 3.1415 is 3,1415 (pronounced tre komma et fire et fem or tre komma en fire en fem).
• Powers of 10: 10¹ ti, 10² hundrede, 10³ tusind, 10⁴ titusind, 10⁵ hundrede tusind, 10⁶ million, 10⁹ milliard, 10¹² billion, 10¹⁸ trillion.
• Following this schema, 3254 is pronounced 3 thousand 2 hundred 4 and (a half missing from three) times 20, that is tre tusinde to hundrede og fireoghalvtreds. But it is rare to find numbers written in letters beyond 100, except round numbers like 1000.

Ordinal numbers are written by appending a full stop, so "fifth" is 5. or femte, but not *5te.

Playing cards in Danish · kort, spillekort (layout · text)
es	toer	treer	firer	femmer	sekser	syver
otter	nier	tier	knægt, bonde	dame, dronning	konge	joker

• Appendix:Swedish numerals

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