Writing Numbers: Figures, Words and Formatting

Knowing how to say numbers is one thing; knowing how to write them correctly is another, and this is where English speakers stumble badly — because the Afrikaans conventions are, in two key respects, the exact reverse of English. The decimal point becomes a comma, and the thousands comma becomes a space. Add the hyphenation of spelled-out compound numbers and the rules for when to use words versus figures, and you have a small but high-stakes set of conventions. Get them wrong and a price or a statistic can be misread by a factor of a thousand. For how the numbers are formed and pronounced, see cardinal numbers; this page is purely about written form.

The decimal comma — not a point

This is the single most important thing on the page. In Afrikaans the decimal separator is a comma, not a point.

Read aloud, the comma is komma: drie komma vyf (3,5), nul komma vyf (0,5). An English speaker writing 3.5 in an Afrikaans document has made a real error, not a stylistic slip — and a reader scanning quickly may misparse it.

The thousands separator — a space, not a comma

Large numbers are grouped in threes using a non-breaking space, never a comma. A comma in that position would be read as a decimal.

There is one widely accepted exception: four-digit numbers are often written without the space when they stand alone, especially years and simple counts — 1995, 2026, 3500 are all common. But once you reach five digits the grouping space is standard: 12 500, 100 000. Years are never grouped: you write in 2026, not in 2 026.

Money: the rand and the comma

South African currency follows the same logic. The rand symbol R comes before the amount with no space, rands and cents are separated by the decimal comma, and cents always get two digits.

Notice R1 234,50 combines both conventions in one figure: a space before the thousands and a comma before the cents. To an English eye trained on "$1,234.50" the separators look swapped — and that is exactly the point.

When to spell out versus use figures

The broad convention, shared with careful English writing, is: spell out small numbers, use figures for larger ones and for technical data. The common cut-off is to write out numbers up to twaalf (twelve), and to use figures from 13 upward — though style guides vary, and consistency within a document matters more than the exact threshold.

Three practical rules override the size guideline:

• Never start a sentence with a figure. Spell it out, or rephrase. Sewentien mense het opgedaag — not 17 mense het opgedaag at the start of a sentence.
• Always use figures with units, dates, times, percentages and money, regardless of size: 3 kg, 5 °C, 2%, R7, 14:30.
• Be consistent across a comparison. If you write one figure in a series, write them all the same way: 3 appels, 8 pere en 12 lemoene, not a mix of words and digits.

Hyphens in spelled-out compound numbers

When you do write a number out in words, Afrikaans hyphenates the compound parts. The pattern is units-en-tens: the unit comes first, then en ("and"), then the ten, all joined by hyphens.

Two things to lock in. First, the unit precedes the ten — een-en-twintig is literally "one-and-twenty," the older Germanic order English has mostly abandoned. Second, the hyphens are obligatory in the tens-and-units cluster; sewe en twintig written as three loose words is wrong. The honderd and duisend parts join with en but the whole multi-part number stays hyphenated through the tens: eenhonderd-vyf-en-twintig (125).

Ordinals in writing

Spelled-out ordinals add -de or -ste to the cardinal (derde, vierde, sewende; eerste, agtste). In figures, Afrikaans appends the abbreviated ending directly to the digit: 1ste, 2de, 3de, 4de, 7de, 8ste, 20ste.

The ending tracks the spoken word: eerste gives 1ste, tweede gives 2de, derde gives 3de, agtste gives 8ste. For dates you will commonly see die 5de Junie or, more formally written out, die vyfde Junie. The grammar of ordinals themselves is covered on ordinal numbers; here, just match the abbreviation to the word's ending.

Ranges, phone numbers and a note on usage

A few smaller conventions round out everyday writing. Number ranges use an en-dash or the word tot ("to"): bladsye 10–15 or bladsye 10 tot 15 ("pages 10 to 15"). Phone numbers are grouped by the South African pattern, usually three then three then four digits with spaces: 082 123 4567. And in running prose, time of day uses the 24-hour clock with a colon — 14:30 — read as half drie in speech but written numerically in schedules and notices.

Why does South Africa use the comma-and-space system at all? It inherited the continental metric convention through Dutch and the wider European standard (the same one used in much of Europe and codified by international metrology bodies). English-speaking countries kept the older point-and-comma habit; Afrikaans went with the metric mainstream. Knowing the why makes the convention stick: it is not an Afrikaans quirk but the international scientific default, and English is the outlier.

Common mistakes

Key takeaways

• The decimal separator is a comma (3,5), and the thousands separator is a space (1 000) — the reverse of English.
• Money combines both: R1 234,50 (space for thousands, comma before cents, two-digit cents).
• Spell out small numbers (up to about twelve) and at the start of a sentence; use figures for larger numbers and always with units, dates, times, percentages and money.
• Written-out compound numbers are hyphenated with the unit first: sewe-en-twintig (27), sewe-en-veertig (47).
• Abbreviated ordinals attach the Afrikaans ending to the digit: 1ste, 2de, 3de, 8ste, 25ste — never the English -nd / -th.