Day 5 of 90
Numbers and prices
Numbers are the part of a new language that fails first under pressure, because prices come at you fast and nobody repeats them slowly. Today is worth doing twice.
One to twelve
These twelve have to be automatic, not worked out.
uno is the number and un is the article, and they are the same word doing two jobs. That is why quiero uno means I want one, standing alone, and quiero un café means I want a coffee. Feminine nouns take una in both roles, so quiero una is I want one when the thing is feminine.
Thirteen to twenty
The pattern changes at sixteen, and then it is regular forever.
From sixteen onward Spanish stops inventing new words and starts gluing: diez y seis compressed into dieciséis. After thirty it separates again, treinta y uno as three words. So there are exactly fifteen number words to memorise, from cero to quince, and everything after that is assembly.
Prices
Ask, hear, and check.
cuesta and cuestan differ by one letter and that letter tells you whether the price covers one item or several, which is exactly the information you need when a market seller quotes you a number. English does the same work with does and do, so the machinery is familiar. What is new is that the marker sits on the end of the verb rather than in front of it.
Most Spanish speaking countries write prices with a comma where English uses a point, so 1.500,50 is one thousand five hundred and fifty cents, not one point five. Mexico is the notable exception and uses the English convention. When a price is written down and looks wrong by a factor of a thousand, this is usually why.
Check yourself
Eight questions. Get 5 of them right to finish the day.
More from this course
Weeks 1 to 2: first words, first sentences.
See all 90 days of the course →