Learn Spanish (Spain): El libro tiene ciento veinte páginas. - The book has one hundred and twenty pages.

El libro tiene ciento veinte páginas.

The book has one hundred and twenty pages.

Breakdown of El libro tiene ciento veinte páginas.

Questions & Answers about El libro tiene ciento veinte páginas.

Why does this say ciento instead of cien for one hundred?

You use cien when you have exactly 100 of something. Whenever you have a number from 101 to 199, the word changes to ciento followed by the rest of the number, like ciento veinte here.

In English we add the word and, like one hundred and twenty. Why is there no y here?

In Spanish, you never use y to connect hundreds to the rest of the number. The word y is only used to connect tens and ones, starting from 31, like in treinta y uno. For 120, you just put the words directly next to each other: ciento veinte.

Since páginas is feminine, do the numbers change to match its gender?

Not in this case. The words cien and ciento do not change depending on whether the noun is masculine or feminine, and neither does veinte. You only change the gender for hundreds starting at 200, like doscientas páginas.

Why does the word páginas have an accent mark?

In Spanish, words that end in the letter s naturally place the spoken stress on the second-to-last syllable. Without the accent, you would pronounce it pa-GI-nas. The accent mark is there to tell you to break that rule and emphasize the first syllable: PA-gi-nas.