Today you are going to learn how to count to 100 in German, how to tell time and how to do simple math problems all in German. Stick around to the end and I will blow your mind about the number “eins” in German.
This video is sponsored by Lingoda. No matter if you are learning German for your job or just for fun, Lingoda has the lessons you need to reach your goals. Take live online lessons with native speakers whenever you want. Click this link and get started learning German with Lingoda today.
eins - Ich bin eins. Ich bin ein Jahr alt.
one - I am one. I am one year old.
zwei - Ich habe zwei Kinder.
two - I have two children.
drei - Das sind drei Katzen.
three - These are three cats.
vier - Ich esse jeden Tag vier Äpfel.
four - I eat four apples everyday.
fünf - Das sind fünf Bären.
five - These are five bears.
sechs - Er hat sechs Karten.
six - He has six cards.
sieben - Wir sind auf Wolke sieben.
seven - We are on cloud nine (literally seven).
acht - Es ist acht Uhr.
eight - It is eight o’clock.
neun - Die Katze hat neun Leben.
nine - The cat has nine lives.
zehn - Ich kann auf Deutsch bis zehn zählen!
ten - I can count to ten in German.
elf - Es gibt elf Elfen in dem Baum.
eleven - There are eleven elves in the tree.
zwölf - Der Wolf pustet zwölf Mal, aber das Haus bleibt stehen.
twelve - The wolf blows twelve times, but the house stays standing.
The numbers after zwölf (12) follow a pattern. Up to and including 19, the numbers end with “zehn” and start with the same word as the numbers drei (3) to neun (9). Just be careful with sechzehn (16) and siebzehn (17), as they drop a letter or two to form the new number.
dreizehn - Dreizehn ist eine Unglückszahl.
thirteen - Thirteen is an unlucky number.
vierzehn - Vierzehn Kinder sind zu viel.
fourteen - Fourteen children are too many.
fünfzehn - Meine Schwester ist fünfzehn Jahre alt.
fifteen - My sister is fifteen years old.
sechzehn - Ab sechzehn kann man in den USA fahren.
sixteen - Starting at sixteen, you can drive in the USA.
siebzehn - Siebzehn ist eine Zeitschrift in den USA.
seventeen - Seventeen is a magazine in the USA.
achtzehn - Ab achtzehn kann man in Deutschland ohne Eltern fahren.
eighteen - Starting at eighteen, you can drive in Germany without parents.
neunzehn - Die Duggars haben neunzehn Kinder.
nineteen - The Duggars have nineteen children.
After neunzehn (19) we have a similar pattern. All of the number up to and including neunundneunzig (99) follow the pattern of ones place + und + tens place. Obviously, if there is a zero in the ones place, you don’t bother saying it outloud. If the number eins (1) is in the ones place, you don’t say the “S” at the end of the word “eins” and instead just say “ein” + und + tens place. Here are the numbers from 21 to 29 as an example.
einundzwanzig - twenty-one
zweiundzwanzig - twenty-two
dreiundzwanzig - twenty-three
vierundzwanzig - twenty-four
fünfundzwanzig - twenty-five
sechsundzwanzig - twenty-six
siebenundzwanzig - twenty-seven
achtundzwanzig - twenty-eight
neunundzwanzig - twenty-nine
Once you have mastered this pattern of number creation, you simply have to learn the words for the tens places. I’ll count by tens to show you what they are. Things to note about these numbers: dreißig is the only one spelled with an eszett (ß) instead of “Z”. Both sechs and sieben get shortened again, as they did in the teens, to become sechzig (60) and siebzig (70).
zehn - ten
zwanzig - twenty
dreißig - thirty
vierzig - forty
fünfzig - fifty
sechzig - sixty
siebzig - seventy
achtzig - eighty
neunzig - ninety
Once you get to neunundneunzig (99) in German, you get to “einhundert”, which you can also say as just “hundert”. Then you just put the number after the hundred behind the word “hundert”. If you have more than one hundred, you put the number of hundreds you have in front of the hundred.
einhunderteins - one hundred one
zweihundertdreiundvierzig - two hundred forty-three
achthundertsiebenundachtzig - eight hundred eighty-seven
Just like in English, you can use eleven through the teens to express numbers over one thousand, but anything beyond the teens has to be expressed with the word “tausend”
elfhundertzweiundzwanzig - eleven hundred twenty-two
neunzehnhundertneunundneunzig - nineteen hundred ninety-nine
zweitausendneunzehn - two thousand nineteen
To tell time in German, you can simply put the word “Uhr” between the hours and minutes. To say a full sentence, you can add “es ist” in front of the time. Keep in mind that 1 o’clock is “ein Uhr” and not “eins Uhr”. Also “eine Uhr” would be “a clock”, which is clearly not what you meant.
Es ist acht Uhr fünfzehn. - It is eight fifteen. (8:15)
Es ist sechs Uhr sechsunddreißig. - It is six thirty-six. (6:36)
Es ist zwei Uhr. - It is two o’clock. (2:00)
Es ist fünf Uhr fünfundfünfzig. - It is fife fifty-five. (5:55)
Use “nach” to say that the time is a number of minutes after the hour. You can also include “Minuten” in your sentence, if you like, but it is not necessary. You can also leave out the “Uhr” when you form your sentences like this. If you leave out the word “Uhr” with “ein Uhr” it becomes “eins” instead.
Es ist drei Minuten nach vier. - It is three minutes after four. (4:03)
Es ist elf Minuten nach ein Uhr. Es ist elf Minuten nach eins. - It is eleven minutes after one o’clock. (1:11)
Es ist vierundzwanzig nach drei. - It is twenty-four minutes after three. (3:24)
Use “vor” to say that the time is a number of minutes before the hour. The same rules as before (with regards to “Minuten” and “Uhr”) still apply.
Es ist fünf vor sechs. - It is five til six. (5:55)
Es ist zehn Minuten vor zwei. - It is ten minutes before two. (1:50)
Es ist dreizehn Minuten vor sieben Uhr. - It is thirteen minutes before seven o’clock. (6:47)
What you may not have realized about all of those examples I just gave is that every one of them is in the morning. That’s because the Germans use the 24 hour clock. In order to say a time that is after zwölf Uhr (12 o’clock), you simply count up to the next hour, dreizehn Uhr (13 o’clock), vierzehn Uhr (14 o’clock), etc. If you have trouble with this, take any number that is over 12 and subtract 12 from it to get the hour in the 12 hour system. It is common to use the 12 hour system in conversational German, as you can tell based on context if you mean morning or afternoon, but any written or official time telling will be done in the 24 hour system, because there is no obligatory a.m. or p.m. equivalent like we have in English.
Es ist vierzehn Uhr dreißig. - It is fourteen thirty. (14:30)
Es ist zehn vor siebzehn Uhr. - It is ten before seventeen o’clock. (16:50)
Es ist dreiundzwanzig Uhr zwölf. - It is twenty-three twelve. (23:12)
In order to read simple math questions in German, you will need some extra vocabulary. You say “plus” to add things together. You can use “ist” or “macht” where the equal sign goes.
10 + 21 = 31 - Zehn plus einundzwanzig macht einunddreißig.
24 + 35 = 59 - Vierundzwanzig plus fünfunddreißig ist neunundfünfzig.
To subtract, use “minus”.
99 - 44 = 55 - Neunundneunzig minus vierundvierzig macht fünfundfünfzig.
46 - 12 = 34 - Sechsundvierzig minus zwölf ist vierunddreißig.
To multiply use “mal”.
9 x 9 = 81 - Neun mal neun ist einundachtzig.
8 x 8 = 64 - Acht mal acht macht vierundsechzig.
To divide, use “geteilt durch”.
72 ÷ 9 = 8 - Zweiundsiebzig geteilt durch neun macht acht.
55 ÷ 5 = 11 - Fünfundfünfzig geteilt durch fünf ist elf.
There are obviously other ways to tell time in German including quarter and half hours as well as some complicated ways that you might have heard about when watching other videos or reading about telling time in German. In the next video in this series, I will talk about some of these and also what to do with the time in a sentence. Where do you put it? How flexible is German word order? This will be the first lesson about word order in this series, so make sure you don’t miss it.
Your fantastic fact of the day is about the number “eins”. You may have noticed, I mentioned that there is a difference between “ein Uhr” (one o’clock) and “eine Uhr” (a clock). That’s because the word “ein” (and also its other forms, eine, and einen) all stem from the German word for one, eins. This means that you can use it like I did in my first example sentence “Ich bin ein Jahr alt.” and translate it as “I am one year old.” or “I am a year old.”, as the word “ein” can also mean “a” or “an” in that sentence. This is also true of other times when you use “ein” in a sentence. For example: “Ich habe einen Hund.” can be translated as “I have a dog.” or “I have one dog.”
Now for the mind-blowing part. All of that is true, because “eins” is being used as a pronoun. It replaces something in every sentence in which it is ever used. It doesn’t have any of the other endings like “eine” or “einen”, because it is being used as a kind of generic pronoun that doesn’t necessarily point to a particular noun, so it takes the neuter form “eins”. For example: Ist das ein Blatt Papier? Ja, das ist eins.
If the noun that is being replaced is known, you do need to change “ein” to fit the gender of the noun being replaced and the case in which the pronoun is used. For example: “Hilfe! Ich brauche einen Arzt. Er ist einer.”
Since this video is designed for A1 learners, I’ll just point out that if you are going to use “ein” in this manner, you should probably wait until you have learned a bit more German.
Again, I’d like to thank my sponsor, Lingoda. They have lessons to fit whatever your needs may be. If you are learning German (or even French, Spanish or English for that matter), they have the lessons and materials you need to be successful in your foreign language goals. Click this link and check them out.
Comments