4.10

# Ordenstall - Ordinals

Ordinals in Norwegian are mostly made by adding the ending -(n)de to the cardinal numbers.

They are written with a full stop right after:

 14 fjorten 14. fjorten-de
 20 tjue 20. tjue-nde

However, the first 12 ordinals deviate from the pattern and you should learn them by heart.

Some ordinals might also challenge your pronunciation. Particularly, this applies to the ordinals 16th, 20th and 27th:

16th is written sekstende, but it is pronounced without the “k”

20th and 27th are written tjuende and tjuesjuende and are pronounced with a /ç/ sound followed by a /∫/sound

From the ordinal 20th on, we have two ways of spelling and pronouncing ordinals, just as we do with normal cardinal numbers, remember?

The modern way:

 20 tjuende 20th
 27 tjuesjuende 27th
 30 trettiende 30th
 31 trettiførste 31st

The “old” way:

 20 tyvende 20th
 27 syvogtyvende 27th
 30 tredevte 30th
 31 enogtredevte 31st

etc…

You can always watch again the video about Cardinal numbers if you are in doubt.