Counting Spanish Numbers 1-20: List, Sentences and Practice

The way we write and pronounce numbers is quite different from English, but they are still as important to give or get some personal information. In this lesson, we will learn how to spell and pronounce Spanish numbers 1-20, “los números del uno al veinte”. You will find a complete list with these numbers as well as some rules to form a few of them and remember them easily. The vocabulary will be used in sentences and questions so you can how useful they are for different situations in the language.  

How to count to 20 in Spanish – Spanish Numbers 1-20

LOS NÚMEROS or Spanish numbers can be divided in two main categories: cardinal and ordinal numbers. This lesson is about cardinal numbers, which are often used to share or get some personal information about ages, phone numbers and many other things. Spanish numbers 1-20 are all written in a different way so we must memorize them as they are the basis for more complex numbers. UNO is a special case as it changes to UN when used before a masculine noun like CARRO (car), which means it would be correct to say UN CARRO but not UNO CARRO. The picture below shows how to spell numbers in Spanish from one to twenty-one.

How to spell and pronounce Spanish numbers 1-10: list and sentences

We will learn how to count to 20 in Spanish by presenting them in two groups of examples. Below, there are some questions and sentences with Spanish numbers 1-10. Listen to their pronunciation and pay attention to the way subject pronouns and possessive adjectives are used in some of the sentences. In addition these sentences include some common irregular verbs like TENER(to have) and HAY (there is/there are). The words in bold are “números”. Press PLAY to listen to the examples.

Making sentences with Numbers in Spanish 11-20: list and sentences

The last group to complete our list of Spanish numbers 1-20 are those between 11 and 20, “los números del once al veinte”. They must be memorized too, but there is a simple pattern to follow for some numbers, particularly from 16 to 19. All you need to do is join the prefix DIECI- plus a SEIS, SIETE, OCHO or NUEVE. The number “dieciséis” is special though because it needs a tilde over the “é”. The chart below shows how to pronounce and spell Spanish numbers 11-20 and shows how they can be used in meaningful sentences and questions. Again, we will be using the verbs TENER and HAY in these examples.

This is the end of these lesson. Hopefully, you will remember most Spanish numbers 1-20. If not, you can always come back to these lesson and review. In the next two lessons, we will learn numbers in Spanish from 21 to 100 and then numbers over 100. Before you leave, test yourself with this cool quiz. ¡Hasta pronto!

Interactive quiz

Drag the numbers to the correct boxes (exercise 1 and 2) and complete the sentences with the numbers in parentheses (exercise 3 and 4)

Related Spanish Worksheets:

• Ordinal Numbers in Spanish – PDF Worksheet
• Numbers in Spanish from 1 to 20 – PDF Worksheet
• Numbers in Spanish from 20 to 100 – PDF Worksheet