Catalan cardinal numbers express quantity: tres entrades “three tickets,” quaranta euros “forty euros,” and un milió d'habitants “one million inhabitants.” Most forms are invariable, but one, two, and the hundreds agree with the noun. English speakers therefore have two jobs: build the right number and then let its variable pieces match the thing counted.
The system is highly productive, but it is not improvised. Established forms such as setze, quaranta, and milió, the D-U-C hyphen pattern, and editorial conventions all belong to the number. A transparent spelling is not automatically the Catalan spelling.
Zero to nineteen: the lexical core
The first twenty forms must be learned. Some resemble Spanish or French, but guessing from a cognate is unreliable.
| Figure | Catalan | Figure | Catalan |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | zero | 10 | deu |
| 1 | un, una | 11 | onze |
| 2 | dos, dues | 12 | dotze |
| 3 | tres | 13 | tretze |
| 4 | quatre | 14 | catorze |
| 5 | cinc | 15 | quinze |
| 6 | sis | 16 | setze |
| 7 | set | 17 | disset |
| 8 | vuit | 18 | divuit |
| 9 | nou | 19 | dinou |
Només queden set cadires i onze persones encara busquen lloc.
Only seven chairs remain, and eleven people are still looking for a seat.
—Quants cafès vols? —Dos, però posa-hi zero sucre.
—How many coffees do you want? —Two, but put no sugar in them.
In the Central baseline, use vuit, disset, divuit, and dinou. (regional: Valencian) huit, dèsset/desset, díhuit, and dènou/denou belong to other standard models; (regional: Balearic) and some other varieties also preserve forms such as desset and denou. These are systematic regional choices, not spellings to mix randomly in one neutral text.
Tens and the productive pattern
The round tens are vint 20, trenta 30, quaranta 40, cinquanta 50, seixanta 60, setanta 70, vuitanta 80, and noranta 90. Add a unit with a hyphen from 31 onward: trenta-un, quaranta-dos, seixanta-set. The twenties have the special linker -i-: vint-i-un, vint-i-dos, vint-i-nou.
| Family | Segmentation | Complete form |
|---|---|---|
| 21 | vint + i + un | vint-i-un |
| 28 | vint + i + vuit | vint-i-vuit |
| 34 | trenta + quatre | trenta-quatre |
| 67 | seixanta + set | seixanta-set |
| 99 | noranta + nou | noranta-nou |
El tren surt d'aquí a trenta-cinc minuts i encara hem de comprar els bitllets.
The train leaves in thirty-five minutes, and we still have to buy the tickets.
Aquest mes hem rebut vuitanta-nou sol·licituds, dotze més que el mes passat.
This month we received eighty-nine applications, twelve more than last month.
The final component carries the main stress of the compound. In careful speech, the written t of vint may become audible before a following vowel, as in vint-i-un. Do not remove the letter because it may be weak or silent before a pause in Central Catalan; spelling preserves the morphological form. The dedicated final-consonant page explains this sound–spelling relationship.
Agreement: un/una, dos/dues, and hundreds
Before a counted noun, un/una and dos/dues agree in gender. This agreement remains visible inside larger numbers and may extend through mil: vint-i-una pàgines, trenta-dues places, dues mil persones. The masculine forms are vint-i-un llibres and trenta-dos seients.
Necessitem vint-i-una carpetes blaves i trenta-dos sobres grans.
We need twenty-one blue folders and thirty-two large envelopes.
Més de dues mil famílies han demanat l'ajut aquest any.
More than two thousand families have applied for the grant this year.
(regional: Valencian, also found elsewhere informally) Invariable dos before a feminine noun is established in speech and belongs to the Valencian standard model: dos cases, vint-i-dos pàgines. In a Central teaching baseline, use dues cases, vint-i-dues pàgines. Both systems are coherent; switching back and forth without a regional reason is not.
Hundreds from 200 onward also agree. The ending belongs to cents/centes, while the initial dos/dues agrees too:
| Masculine | Feminine |
|---|---|
| dos-cents llibres | dues-centes revistes |
| tres-cents alumnes | tres-centes alumnes |
| vuit-cents metres | vuit-centes pàgines |
The bare form cent is used for exactly 100 and at the start of 101–199: cent persones, cent una persones, cent quaranta persones. It does not become centa. Agreement appears in the -cents/-centes hundreds from 200 upward.
L'arxiu conté dues-centes quaranta-una fotografies i tres-cents vídeos.
The archive contains 241 photographs and 300 videos.
Hundreds, thousands, and millions
Apply the spelling boundaries structurally:
- 234: dos-cents trenta-quatre
- 1,234: mil dos-cents trenta-quatre
- 25,600: vint-i-cinc mil sis-cents
- 241,032 feminine referents: dues-centes quaranta-una mil trenta-dues
There is a hyphen inside dos-cents and trenta-quatre, but a space after mil and between the hundreds and tens. Catalan normally has no English-style and between the hundreds and the tens.
La cooperativa va vendre vint-i-cinc mil sis-centes ampolles l'any passat.
The cooperative sold twenty-five thousand six hundred bottles last year.
Mil is a numeral, but milió behaves as a masculine count noun: un milió, dos milions. A round million quantity connects to the counted noun with de: un milió d'euros, tres milions de visites. The written accent in singular milió marks final stress; plural milions remains finally stressed but needs no accent under the ordinary spelling rules.
El vídeo ja ha superat un milió de visualitzacions.
The video has already exceeded one million views.
Do not use English billion as a safe cognate. Catalan bilió traditionally denotes a million millions, whereas English billion normally denotes one thousand millions. For 10⁹, use mil milions or un miliard. The large-number guide develops the full scale.
Quantity versus label: un and u
Use un/una when the numeral counts a noun: un bitllet, una entrada. Use u when naming the number itself or using a cardinal as a postposed label: el número u, la pàgina vint-i-u, l'habitació trenta-u. Labels do not agree with the gender of the preceding noun.
A la pàgina trenta-u hi ha una taula amb vint-i-una files.
On page thirty-one there is a table with twenty-one rows.
This distinction explains why pàgina vint-i-u is correct as a label but vint-i-una pàgines is required as a feminine quantity. English uses the same spoken “one” in both roles; Catalan marks the structural difference.
A realistic booking dialogue
—Per a quantes persones és la reserva? —Per a vint-i-dues: dinou adults i tres criatures. —Perfecte; són quatre-cents cinquanta euros en total.
—How many people is the reservation for? —For twenty-two: nineteen adults and three children. —Perfect; the total is four hundred fifty euros.
The dialogue combines feminine agreement in vint-i-dues [persones] with masculine dinou adults and feminine tres criatures. The price has quatre-cents because euros is masculine. The noun controls the form; the speaker's mental image of “a quantity” does not.
Correction exercise
Correct this inventory line: dos-centes trenta dos cadires; vintidós tamborets; un milió cadires plegables. First identify gender, then apply the D-U-C spelling rule, and finally check whether the million noun requires a preposition.
Dues-centes trenta-dues cadires; vint-i-dos tamborets; un milió de cadires plegables.
Two hundred thirty-two chairs; twenty-two stools; one million folding chairs. — Corrected inventory line.
Common Mistakes
1. Copying a masculine form before a feminine noun.
❌ Hi ha dos-centes trenta-dos places disponibles.
Incorrect — both variable parts must be feminine before places.
✅ Hi ha dues-centes trenta-dues places disponibles.
There are 232 places available.
2. Copying Spanish one-word morphology.
❌ Han arribat vintidós paquets.
Incorrect — Catalan writes the twenties with -i- between two hyphens.
✅ Han arribat vint-i-dos paquets.
Twenty-two parcels have arrived.
3. Inserting English and.
❌ El teatre té cent i quaranta seients.
Incorrect for the ordinary cardinal — Catalan does not insert i between hundreds and tens.
✅ El teatre té cent quaranta seients.
The theater has 140 seats.
4. Treating milió like an ordinary adjective.
❌ La campanya ha arribat a dos milions persones.
Incorrect — a round million quantity requires de before its complement.
✅ La campanya ha arribat a dos milions de persones.
The campaign has reached two million people.
Key Takeaways
- Memorize the lexical core through dinou and the round tens; build the remaining forms productively.
- Use una, dues, and -centes with feminine nouns in the Central standard model, including inside larger numbers.
- Apply D-U-C: hyphenate tens–units and units–hundreds, with the special vint-i- linker.
- Use spaces at the other boundaries: mil dos-cents trenta-quatre.
- Distinguish quantity un/una from label or number-name u.
- Treat milió/milions as nouns followed by de in round quantities.
Related Topics
- Hyphens in Compound NumbersA2 — Apply the Catalan D-U-C rule to spell complex cardinal and ordinal numbers with exactly the right hyphens.
- Dates, Years, and Clock TimeA1 — State Catalan dates, years, and clock times with day-first order, correct articles, and regional hour systems.
- Large Numbers and Scale NamesB2 — Read and write Catalan numbers from thousands to trillions using the long scale, correct noun agreement, grouping, and unambiguous English translation.
- Molt, Poc, Tant, and QuantA2 — Distinguish agreeing Catalan quantity determiners from invariant degree adverbs, and use tant, tan, quant, and de correctly.
- Final Consonants and DevoicingA2 — Understand Catalan final-obstruent devoicing, cluster simplification, silent consonants, and the different effects of following vowels and consonants.