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Germanic · Nederland

Numbers in
Nederlands

Eerst de één, dan de tien
10 minread
7sections
1 en 20= 21
122
honderdtweeëntwintig
00

The big picture

Dutch and German share the same skeleton: unit before ten, joined by en ("and"), all written as one long word. Dutch adds two signature flourishes — a diaeresis (ë) when vowels would visually collide, and the accented één when you need to distinguish "one" from the article "a/an."

i
If you only remember one thing: 22 is tweeëntwintig, not tweeentwintig. Those two dots over the ë tell the reader "new syllable starts here." You'll see them on every number where 2 or 3 meets a ten.
01

Zero to twenty

13 and 14 quietly drop letters — dertien (not "drietien"), veertien (not "viertien"). The same stem changes carry into the tens.

0
nul
accent
1
één
2
twee
3
drie
4
vier
5
vijf
6
zes
7
zeven
8
acht
9
negen
10
tien
11
elf
12
twaalf
stem
13
dertien
stem
14
veertien
15
vijftien
16
zestien
17
zeventien
18
achttien
19
negentien
20
twintig
i
één vs een. Without the accent, een means "a/an." With the accent, één means the number 1. Ik heb één appel = "I have one apple." Ik heb een appel = "I have an apple." The accent is mandatory when the difference matters.
02

The tens (20 – 90)

Three oddities. Dertig and veertig mirror the 13/14 stem changes. And tachtig sprouts a t- in front of acht for reasons lost to history — there's no "achtig" for 80.

20
twintig
stem
30
dertig
stem
40
veertig
50
vijftig
60
zestig
70
zeventig
t- prefix
80
tachtig
90
negentig
03

21 – 99 & the diaeresis

The flip works just like German: unit + en + ten, all as one word. But when twee or drie meets en, the vowels would visually merge — so Dutch marks the boundary with a diaeresis on the second vowel: tweeën, drieën.

¨
The diaeresis rule. Whenever a compound combines twee (2) or drie (3) with en, write the second e as ë. The dots signal "this is a new syllable, not part of a long vowel." Other digits — vier, vijf, zes, etc. — don't collide and don't need the mark.
21
éénentwintig
ë
22
tweeënentwintig tweeëntwintig
ë
23
drieëntwintig
25
vijfentwintig
28
achtentwintig
ë
32
tweeëndertig
47
zevenenveertig
ë
53
drieënvijftig
68
achtenzestig
76
zesenzeventig
tachtig
87
zevenentachtig
95
vijfennegentig
22
tweeëntwintig
twee + en + twintig → tweeëntwintig
99
negenennegentig
9 + en + 90 — flipped, fused, no ë needed
04

Hundreds & thousands

Honderd and duizend glue onto the front of the digit, exactly like the German pattern — and like German, no één or een is needed for standalone 100 / 1000. Everything stays as one continuous word.

no één
100
honderd
200
tweehonderd
500
vijfhonderd
900
negenhonderd
1.000
duizend
2.000
tweeduizend
10.000
tienduizend
100.000
honderdduizend
125
honderdvijfentwintig
100 + (5 en 20)
387
driehonderdzevenentachtig
300 + (7 en 80)
2.345
tweeduizenddriehonderdvijfenveertig
2,000 + 300 + (5 en 40)
1.984
negentienhonderdvierentachtig
years often use 19-hundred + the rest
i
Dots and commas, flipped. Dutch writes thousands with a period (1.000) and decimals with a comma (2,5 = twee komma vijf) — same as German, French, Italian. The opposite of US English.
05

Millions & billions

Long-scale Europe, again. Miljoen = 10⁶, miljard = 10⁹ (English "billion"), biljoen = 10¹² (English "trillion"). The cognate biljoen in a Dutch text means a thousand times more than an English-speaker might assume.

1 M
één miljoen
2 M
twee miljoen
55 M
vijfenvijftig miljoen
10⁹
1 B
één miljard
2 B
twee miljard
10¹²
1 T
één biljoen
Nederlands
1.000.000.000
één miljard

Long-scale, same as German Milliarde, French milliard, Italian miliardo. Dutch biljoen is 1.000.000.000.000.

English (US)
1,000,000,000
one billion

Short scale. The Dutch cognate biljoen is the trap — in finance, news, or science writing it means a thousand times more than English "billion."

!
Miljoen / miljard stay invariable. Unlike German Millionen, Dutch keeps them singular with numbers: twee miljoen, not twee miljoenen. The plural form only appears when used as an abstract noun (er zijn miljoenen mensen = "there are millions of people").
06

Things to remember

Five rules that will save you from the most common mistakes.

1.
Unit before ten, joined by en. Eenentwintig = 21. Zevenentachtig = 87. All one word, however long.
2.
Diaeresis on twee+en and drie+en. Tweeëntwintig (22), drieëndertig (33). Only those two digits trigger it.
3.
één, with accents, for the number 1. Without them, een means "a/an." The accents are mandatory whenever ambiguity matters.
4.
Stem changes: 13 / 14 / 30 / 40 / 80. Dertien, veertien, dertig, veertig, tachtig (the t-prefix is the truly strange one).
5.
Beware biljoen. In Dutch that's 10¹². For 10⁹ — what English calls a billion — use miljard.
Drill it

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