Cardinal Numbers

Cardinal numbers are the counting numbers — one, two, three — and Norwegian builds them on a system that, after a 1951 spelling reform, lines up neatly with English: tens first, then units, tjueén literally "twenty-one." This page takes you from 0 to 100, covering the units, the irregular teens, the round tens, and how to glue them together. Two things get their own pages and are only flagged here: the historical "old counting" that still survives in speech (enogtyve, "one-and-twenty"), and the en/ett gender question for the number one.

0 to 10: the units

Start with the foundation. These are pure memorization — there is no internal logic to derive — but they are short and high-frequency, so they stick fast.

A note on 7: both sju and syv are correct Bokmål. Sju is the more common everyday and official form today; syv is slightly more traditional or formal and is still very widely heard, especially in and around Oslo. Use sju and you will never be wrong.

The number one has two written forms, én (with an accent) and ett, because it agrees with the gender of the noun it counts — that is a whole topic in itself and lives on its own page. For now, just know that "one" is not always the bare en.

11 to 19: the irregular teens

Here is the one genuinely awkward stretch. The teens are irregular — you cannot build them by adding a unit to ti the way English mostly can. They must be learned as their own words.

From 13 upward there is at least a thread of logic: tretten, fjorten, femten, sytten, nitten echo tre, fire, fem, sju, ni with a -ten suffix (the cousin of English -teen). But elleve (11) and tolv (12) are completely opaque — exactly like English eleven and twelve, which is no coincidence, since both languages inherited these from the same Germanic root. And watch the spelling traps: seksten (16) and sytten (17) are pronounced with silent or reduced consonants but written with the full cluster.

The round tens

The tens have their own set of words. From tjue upward they are reasonably regular, echoing the units:

Spelling to watch: førti (40) has ø, not the o of fire. tjue (20) is the modern Bokmål spelling — you may also see tyve in older texts, but tjue is standard today. From 30 up, the pattern is the unit-stem plus -ti (tre-tti, fem-ti, seks-ti, sytt-i, ått-i, nitt-i), the Norwegian relative of English -ty.

Building 21 to 99: tens first, then units

This is the headline of modern Norwegian counting, and it is friendly to English speakers. You say the ten first, then the unit, written as one word:

• 21 = tjue
  • én → tjueén
• 22 = tjue
  • to → tjueto
• 35 = tretti
  • fem → trettifem
• 99 = nitti
  • ni → nittini

The order matches English ("twenty-one," "thirty-five"). The only differences from English are that there is no hyphen — Norwegian writes the compound as a single unbroken word — and that the unit one appears as the accented én (tjueén, trettién).

A word about the "old counting"

If you talk to Norwegians — especially older speakers, or anyone reading a phone number aloud — you will hear a completely different order: units first, joined by og ("and"), then the ten. This is the old counting (den gamle tellemåten):

• 21 = enogtyve ("one-and-twenty")
• 35 = femogtredve ("five-and-thirty")

The modern tjueén order was introduced by a parliamentary reform in 1951, mainly so that numbers would be spoken in the same order they are written and dictated — a real practical concern for telephone operators and accountants of the era. The reform succeeded in writing and in official speech, but the old "one-and-twenty" pattern never fully died in everyday talk, and many Norwegians still use it naturally. Because this is its own substantial topic — when to expect which, and how to understand both — it has a dedicated page. For now: learn to produce the modern tjueén order, and learn to recognize the old enogtyve order when you hear it.

Reaching 100

One hundred is hundre (or ett hundre when you want to be emphatic about exactly one hundred). It needs no preceding en: you simply say hundre kroner for "a hundred kroner." The full path from 0 to 100 is now in your hands; numbers beyond 100 — hundre, tusen, million and how they combine — have their own page.

Basic arithmetic vocabulary

A small bonus that comes up constantly in shops, classrooms, and recipes:

Common Mistakes

Regularizing the teens. English speakers, primed by thir-teen, four-teen, try to build 11 and 12 from the units. They are irregular words.

Writing compound numbers with a hyphen or a space. English uses a hyphen ("twenty-one"); Norwegian writes one solid word.

Spelling 40 with an o. It is førti (with ø), not "forti" — the vowel does not follow fire.

Using bare 'en' for 'one' in counting. The number one is én (accented) and agrees with gender; the accent and the gender both matter.

Key Takeaways

• Units (null…ti) and teens (elleve…nitten) are pure vocabulary; the teens are irregular, especially elleve and tolv.
• The tens are tjue, tretti, førti, femti, seksti, sytti, åtti, nitti — note førti with ø.
• Modern Norwegian builds 21–99 as tens-then-units, one word, no hyphen: tjueén, nittini.
• The old "one-and-twenty" order (enogtyve) still lives in speech — recognize it; it has its own page.
• The numeral one is én/ett, gendered and accented — covered fully on its own page.