langula
How numbers work in Danish
Danish has separate words for 0 to 12: nul, en, to … elleve, tolv. From 13 to 19 the numbers end in -ten: tretten, fjorten, femten, seksten, sytten, atten, nitten.
As in German, the unit comes first, followed by og (and) and the ten, all written as one word: enogtyve (one-and-twenty, 21), femogtredive (35), niogfirs (89).
The tens from 50 are based on an old system of twenties. Tres (60) comes from 'three times twenty' and firs (80) from 'four times twenty'. Halvtreds (50) means 'two and a half times twenty', halvfjerds (70) 'three and a half times twenty' and halvfems (90) 'four and a half times twenty'. You do not need to do the maths: just learn the words. The other tens are tyve (20), tredive (30) and fyrre (40).
Hundrede and tusind can be said with or without et: hundrede or et hundrede. Multiple hundreds are to hundrede, fem hundrede; a million is en million. Cheques and bank forms used to use decimal forms such as femti, seksti, syvti, otti, niti. Long forms such as fyrretyve or halvtredsindstyve are archaic and only appear in old texts.
The ordinals up to ten are første, anden, tredje, fjerde, femte, sjette, syvende, ottende, niende, tiende.