Rules, rules, rules. These are the things that make language learning so bloody difficult. They’re important, though – more important than using British slang when I’m an American! But seriously though, rules. There’s some that are not often spelled outright for us to learn, and about 107% of the rules in your own native language are probably completely unknown to you. So let’s talk about them with numbers, because we’re going to talk about Spanish numbers today.
So yeah, English numbers are pretty easy, right? Pretty much common sense, nothing tricky, yeah? That’s all fine and good, except for the idea that, for the most part, there are no rules because experts literally cannot agree on them. The rules that the experts do agree on, though, are pretty good to know. There is one, for example, that tells you which numbers should be spelled out instead of just digit-ed. I know, I know, you’ve probably wondered back in high school essays or in professional emails if you should be spelling out numbers or not. (Psst. If they’re small numbers, centuries, decades, or the beginning of the sentence, spell’em out!)
So Spanish numbers. Here we have a completely different animal, mostly because they’re in a different language. So they’re not a completely different animal, just a kind of weird one. Why weird? Because Spanish numbers have their own little picky rules. For example.
Let’s take the Spanish number one. Uno. See how it ends in a vowel? Uno will follow suit with whatever gender the word after it says it should be. So for example, say ‘a boy and a girl’. Un niño y una niña. THERE! Did you see it? You get what I mean? See how uno changed?
Now we’ve got something with Spanish numbers that we don’t have to deal with in the entire English language as a whole: accents. Spanish numbers have some weird accents. And by that I mean random Spanish numbers have accents stuck on top of them. 16, 22, 23, 26. Those Spanish numbers have accents. That's it. Completely random, I know.
Oh! And then if we want to combine these two rules, check out 21, or veintiuno. This Spanish number also follows the masculine/feminine thing. Not only does the o/a change with whatever gendered object it’s talking about, but it also drops an accent entirely! Check out 21 days and 21 weeks: veintiún días, veintiuna semanas.
While on the subject of dropping random parts of Spanish numbers, let’s talk about 100, or ciento. Ciento becomes cien quite often. Like, before any noun, as well as before the numbers mil and millones. Speaking of millones, this word gains a de before any noun, like millones de dólares, and also comes with an accent when there’s only one of them; millón.
One last one for ya: you know when to use commas and periods in English, right? With Spanish numbers, they’re flipped. 100%
There you have it! Well I mean, there’s a few more that I haven’t talk about, but these are the interesting ones (I think). What about you? Caught onto any interesting Spanish number habits I haven’t talked about?
Jamie
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Very interesting post, I did not know a lot of this.
If it gets up to 104, they need air conditioning!
In England most washing machines are in the kitchen too, it is weird to me, so interesting that is how it is in Spain too.
Yes, I think they need air conditioning as well, but I suppose they’ve gotten used to grinning and bearing it!
I love cultural insights. Being Australian I think we have a lot in common with our expectation of space and airconditioning! In fact, it is the lack of space that really bugs me living in the UK. There are people everywhere and I feel claustrophobic sometimes. Having said that, the focus on family, ‘just enough’ stuff and spending time with each other instead of in our rooms is increasingly important to me now I have my own children. I’m hoping to take ‘the best bits’ of the cultures I experience and make them my own. Thanks for sharing Jamie
Taking my favorite bits of foreign cultures and putting them into my everyday life is one of the most important parts of travel to me, as well. I mention in another post about how living in Europe made me more physically active, even when I’m back home in America. I love it!
Sorry, but as a Spaniard I have to say your impressions about wine and beer make no sense at all to me.
Most mid-budget restaurants upwards, and many cheaper ones definitely have more than just “red wine” or “white wine”. They’ll have at least a few reds, a few whites, and maybe rosés and sparkling wines. In many cases, they’ll be listed in a special section on the menu, in others, mainly in more upmarket restaurants, there’ll be a wine list. I honestly don’t know which restaurants you may have frequented in Spain, where they were and how many different ones to make such baffling generalisations about “restaurants in Spain”.
As for wine being cheap in Spain, sure, if you go for the cheaper ones or order a glass of the “house wine” without asking what is it. Do some research online, though, and see if you find a shortage of more expensive Spanish wines (hint: you won’t).
Never order a “cerveza”? Why not? If you don’t specify, the waiter will ask if you want a “copa”, a “caña”, a “doble” and so on, and you can always order bottled beer if you prefer it. Many cheap regular bars won’t have more than one kind of draught beer, as you say, but even those will probably have one or two other brands of bottled beer for sure. And that’s your more basic neighbourhood bars. Anywhere else, you’re likely to have a much wider choice of both national and imported beers.
I apologize if I come across as a little blunt, but it seems to me you’re making generalisations without having the necessary knowledge and experience to do so.
I understand if you feel I am making generalizations, because I am, quite frankly. These are general trends that I’ve noticed in Spain. That isn’t to say that different restaurants aren’t different, or that someone else might experience something more similar to your experiences! As a foreigner living in Spain, these were things that stood out to me, as they were different from my experiences back home. These were my impressions and nothing else. Maybe I only happened upon the restaurants that did these things, but that is the way of the traveler - it’s hard to truly experience life the way locals do, especially in international cities.
Thank you for your input, it’s important to get a local’s idea of my own experiences as a foreigner!