5.8 Ordinal numbers

Ordinal numbers from one to nineteen

We refer to the English words "first", "second", "third" etc as ordinal numbers. These are formed in German for the numbers one to nineteen by taking the number itself and adding "-t-" to the end. Four ordinals are irregular: "erst-" (= "first"), "dritt-" (= "third"), "siebt-" (= "seventh") and "acht-" (= "eighth").

 

The important thing to remember is that such numbers are adjectives, and must therefore take adjective endings when they precede a noun. They do so according to the rules which we established in the previous section. Here are the ordinal numbers from one to nineteen, with the adjective endings for a masculine noun after a definite article.

 

When the ordinal number follows an indefinite article, the adjective endings must therefore change. For the purposes of the table below, imagine again that we are dealing with a masculine noun:

Ordinal numbers from twenty upwards

Ordinal numbers from twenty upwards are formed by adding "-st-" to the number itself. Adjective endings are then added in the usual way: