In ordinary speech, we use three types of numbers: cardinal numbers to count with; ordinal numbers which give the position items in series; and multiplicative numbers, which specify how many times we multiply by. We treat each of these numbers in a different section below.
The flashcards above introduce the vocabulary items that we use in this page.
In this section, we provide flashcards the vocabulary of commonly-used cardinal numbers as well as spelling exercises for these numbers
Above we provide flashcards for the basic vocabulary of the cardinal numbers, which are the numbers we use to count with. We also present a few composite numbers—numbers consisting of two or more words—where all digits except the first are zeros. More complicated numbers may be expressed by combining the items in this basic vocabulary; for instance, the number 12,345 is twelve thousand, three hundred and forty five.
In pronouncing the "teens"—the numbers 13 through 19—it is conventional to place the stress on the last syllable (e.g., "seventeen"); in contrast, in pronouncing the "tens"—the numbers 20, ..., 90—it is conventional to place the stress on the first syllable (e.g., "seventy").
There are common colloquialisms in how we express cardinal numbers in English. We introduce them by way of a few examples:
English has a few terms for special numbers in specific usages. The most common is the term dozen which means 12. In American slang, a grand is one thousand dollars. The terms score—which means 20—and baker's dozen—which means 13—are effectively archaic.
Here we provide spelling practice for the numbers introduced in the flashcards of the previous section. All responses should be entered in lowercase.
In this section, we provide flashcards the vocabulary of the ordinal numbers as well as spelling exercises for these numbers.
As will be evident from the flashcards in this section, with the exception of the first three ordinals—first, second, and third—the remainder are derived from the cardinal numbers effectively by adding the suffix th, although the rules are, in practice, slightly more complicated: numbers that end in ve—for instance, five and twelve—have veth replaced by fth—as in fifth and twelfth; and the "tens"—the numbers twenty, ..., ninety—have yth replaced by ieth—twentieth, ..., ninetieth.
The ordinals eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth are unusual in that they are the only ordinals that end in the digits 1, 2, and 3 that also end with the suffix th; all other numbers ending in these three digits bear the suffixes first, second, and third, respectively. Thus, for instance, the ordinal form of the number 72 is seventy-second, while the ordinal form of 1,021 is one thousand and twenty-first.
English also provides abbreviations using the number expressed in terms of its digits with the appropriate suffix: for instance, 1st, 11th, 21st; 2nd, 12th, 22nd; 3rd, 13th, 23rd.
There is very little vocabulary to learn for the multiplicative numbers: the term once means multiplication by 1; twice means multiplication by 2; and thrice means multiplication by 3. (The term thrice is going out of fashion; most people now say three times instead.) For multiplication by numbers greater than 3, we simply state the number and follow it with the word times or add the suffix fold; thus we might say a ball of dough has grown five times larger or has grown fivefold.
Here, again, you should enter all items in lowercase letters.