The numbers from zero to twenty are the bedrock of everything you will do with quantities, prices, ages, and times in Danish. Most of them are short and quickly memorised. The two things that genuinely trip up English speakers are that "one" has two forms depending on the noun it counts, and that a few numbers are pronounced nothing like they are spelled.
The full list, 0 to 20
| Numeral | Danish | Rough pronunciation |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | nul | "nool" |
| 1 | en / et | "een" / "ed" |
| 2 | to | "toh" |
| 3 | tre | "treh" |
| 4 | fire | "FEE-uh" |
| 5 | fem | "fem" |
| 6 | seks | "sex" |
| 7 | syv | "syoo" |
| 8 | otte | "OH-duh" |
| 9 | ni | "nee" |
| 10 | ti | "tee" |
| 11 | elleve | "EL-vuh" |
| 12 | tolv | "tol" |
| 13 | tretten | "TRED-en" |
| 14 | fjorten | "FYOR-den" |
| 15 | femten | "FEM-den" |
| 16 | seksten | "SAJS-ten" |
| 17 | sytten | "SØT-en" |
| 18 | atten | "AD-en" |
| 19 | nitten | "NID-en" |
| 20 | tyve | "TYOO-uh" |
Vi er fem til middag i aften.
There are five of us for dinner tonight.
Bussen kommer om ti minutter.
The bus comes in ten minutes.
Der bor nitten mennesker i opgangen.
Nineteen people live in the stairwell (apartment block).
"One" has two forms: en and et
This is the single most important point on the page. The number 1 is the only Danish numeral that changes shape, and it does so to agree with the gender of the noun it counts. Danish has two genders:
- Common gender (n-words) takes en: en bil (a car / one car).
- Neuter gender (t-words) takes et: et hus (a house / one house).
This is not a coincidence — the counting word en/et is identical to the indefinite article "a/an." So learning to count "one X" and learning to say "a X" is the same skill, and both depend on knowing the noun's gender.
| Common gender (en) | Neuter gender (et) |
|---|---|
| en bil — one car / a car | et hus — one house / a house |
| en kop — one cup | et bord — one table |
| en time — one hour | et æble — one apple |
| en ven — one friend | et barn — one child |
Jeg har kun en kop, men du skal bruge et glas.
I only have one cup, but you'll need a glass.
Der står et bord og en stol i hjørnet.
There's a table and a chair in the corner.
In English, "one" never changes — "one car, one house, one apple" all use the same word. Danish forces you to pick en or et every single time. From two upward, though, the numbers are invariable: to biler, to huse — to does not change for gender. The complication is confined entirely to "one."
To biler og to huse — men kun et træ.
Two cars and two houses — but only one tree.
The pronunciation traps
Several of these numbers are spelled in a way that misleads English speakers. Three deserve special attention.
seksten (16) — Do not say "seks-ten." The -ks- is silent and the word is pronounced roughly "SAJS-ten" (the first syllable rhymes with English "size"). This is the number learners most often mispronounce.
otte (8) — The double -tt- is pronounced as a soft d, so it sounds like "OH-duh," not "OTT-eh." This soft-d is a general Danish feature; see the soft d.
syv (7) — The final -v is a glide, so it sounds like "syoo," ending in a w-like vowel rather than a hard "v."
Klokken er seksten — altså fire om eftermiddagen.
It's sixteen hundred — that is, four in the afternoon.
Vi skal mødes klokken otte.
We're meeting at eight o'clock.
Counting things vs. the bare number
When you simply recite a number — counting steps, reading a phone number, doing arithmetic — you use en as the default citation form: nul, en, to, tre. The en/et split only kicks in when "one" actually modifies a noun.
En, to, tre — så springer vi!
One, two, three — and we jump!
Syv plus en er otte.
Seven plus one is eight.
Common mistakes
❌ Jeg har en hus i Jylland.
Incorrect — *hus* is neuter, so 'one/a house' must use *et*.
✅ Jeg har et hus i Jylland.
I have a house in Jutland.
The biggest early error: defaulting to en for every noun. Hus, bord, barn, æble, træ are all neuter and need et.
❌ Der er et bil udenfor.
Incorrect — *bil* is common gender, so it takes *en*, not *et*.
✅ Der er en bil udenfor.
There's a car outside.
❌ Vi har to bil.
Incorrect — counting more than one usually requires the plural noun.
✅ Vi har to biler.
We have two cars.
From to onward the noun normally goes into the plural (to biler, tre huse). See forming plurals.
❌ (saying 16 as) 'seks-ten'.
Incorrect pronunciation — the -ks- is silent; *seksten* sounds like 'SAJS-ten'.
✅ seksten ≈ 'SAJS-ten'.
Sixteen — pronounced with a silent -ks-.
Key takeaways
- Memorise 0–20 as fixed words; fire, otte, syv, elleve, seksten are the ones to drill for pronunciation.
- One is en (common gender) or et (neuter) — the only number that inflects, and identical to the indefinite article. From to upward, numbers never change for gender.
- seksten is pronounced "SAJS-ten"; otte has a soft d. Spelling and sound diverge here, so learn them by ear, not by letters.
Now practice Danish
Reading grammar gets you part of the way. The exercises are where it sticks — free, no signup needed.
Start learning Danish→Related Topics
- Danish Numbers: An OverviewA1 — A map of the Danish number system — and an early warning that the tens from 50 to 90 are built on base twenty, not base ten.
- Compound Numbers and HundredsA2 — Building Danish numbers 21–99 with units before tens joined by og and written as one word, plus hundrede, tusind and million, and how Danish formats thousands and decimals.
- The Tens and the Vigesimal System (50-90)A2 — Danish counts its tens from 50 to 90 on base twenty: halvtreds (2½×20), tres (3×20), halvfjerds, firs, halvfems. Decode the halv- prefix and the full historical -sindstyve forms — and why there's no femti.
- Grammatical Gender: En-words vs Et-wordsA1 — Danish has two genders — common (en-words) and neuter (et-words). Gender is mostly unpredictable, must be learned with each noun, and controls articles, definite suffixes, adjectives, and pronouns.
- The Indefinite Article En and EtA1 — Danish 'a/an' is en (common) or et (neuter), agreeing with the noun's gender. There is no plural indefinite article, and the article is dropped before professions and nationalities.
- Silent and Weakened ConsonantsB1 — The d, g, h, t and v that Danish writes but barely says — mapped letter by letter, with the high-frequency function words that fix most of a learner's consonant errors.