English Numbers: Learning to Count from 1 to 100
Basic Numbers (1-20)
1 – One
2 – Two
3 – Three
4 – Four
5 – Five
6 – Six
7 – Seven
8 – Eight
9 – Nine
10 – Ten
11 – Eleven
12 – Twelve
13 – Thirteen
14 – Fourteen
15 – Fifteen
16 – Sixteen
17 – Seventeen
18 – Eighteen
19 – Nineteen
20 – Twenty
30 – Thirty
40 – Forty
50 – Fifty
60 – Sixty
70 – Seventy
80 – Eighty
90 – Ninety
Pattern for Numbers 21-99
After twenty, English numbers follow a consistent pattern:
- Tens are formed with special words: twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety
- For numbers between tens (like 21, 22, etc.), combine the ten with a hyphen and the single digit:
- 21 = twenty-one
- 35 = thirty-five
- 48 = forty-eight
- 67 = sixty-seven
- 92 = ninety-two
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Remember that “forty” is spelled without a “u”
- Use hyphens when writing compound numbers (twenty-one, not twenty one)
- The word “and” is not used between tens and ones in American English
Practice Examples
Let’s look at how to write and say some numbers:
- 25: twenty-five
- 38: thirty-eight
- 52: fifty-two
- 74: seventy-four
- 99: ninety-nine
Special Case: 100
100- One Hundred
One hundred is written without a hyphen. When referring to exactly 100, you can say either “a hundred” or “one hundred.”
Pronunciation Tips
- Stress is usually on the first syllable of each number
- In compound numbers (21-99), both parts are stressed:
- TWEN-ty-FIVE
- THIR-ty-EIGHT
- NINE-ty-NINE