How high can you count? …in English!

Here is a poem to help you remember the numbers 1-10 in English.

One, two, buckle my shoe
Three, four, shut the door
Five, six, pick up sticks
Seven, eight, lay them straight
Nine, ten, a big fat hen

Now, can you count higher? How about counting to one hundred or one thousand?

Soon you will be able to count to one billion!

Numbers are the foundation for completing and understanding different math problems. By learning numbers, you can understand simple math concepts that will cause a great impact on your confidence in your math skills. The confidence gives you the way for a more easy-going numeracy learning process in the future.

To start learning numbers are to learn how to identify the first ten numerals (0 – 9), then learn the sound of numbers in English and also how to write the numbers. This learning process might be a bit difficult but also very fun, since you need to put different skills in practice to know the difference between one number and the others, for example, the number 6 and 9, which are quite close in appearance. You are not only learning math but developing other important skills as well. There are several tips

As you grow up, it’s very useful for you to learn the concepts of cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers. Finding out the difference between these two categories and also when and how to use each one, will be helpful for you, not only in school but for your day-to-day life as well.

 

Cardinal Numbers

Are numbers in words from 1 to 10. Since they express quantity, they are mainly used when counting in English. Cardinal numbers have many uses, among those are: talk about a person’s age, sharing phone numbers, or telling someone in which year you were born.

Here are some other cardinal numbers you need to remember for counting:

0	Zero
1	One
10	Ten
100	One hundred
1,000	One thousand
1,000,000	One million
1,000,000,000	One billion

 

Let’s find out how to count and write cardinal numbers from one to a million!

1. Basic Numbers (Ones)

Basic numbers started from 0 to 10

0		1	2	3	4
Zero		One	Two	Three	Four
5		6	7	8	9
Five		Six	Seven	Eight	Nine
10
Ten

 

1. Teen Numbers

After the basic number, there are teen numbers. These numbers are started from 11 – 19. Except for 11 (Eleven) and 12 (Twelve), all the numbers have “-teen” at the end of them. The Teen Numbers consist of ones + teen.

Here are some examples:

 

14	15	16	17	18
Fourteen	Fifteen	Sixteen	Seventeen	Eighteen

 

1. Tens Numbers

Tens Numbers consist of the number 20 – 99. We know, there are a lot of them. But don’t worry, here’s an easy way to remember to say them in English.

 

20	30	40	50
Twenty	Thirty	Forty	Fifty
60	70	80	90
Sixty	Seventy	Eighty	Ninety

 

Tens numbers have “-ty” at the end of them. It is basically the same pattern as the teen numbers, which is ones + ty.

Then what about the ten numbers followed by ones?

 

The pattern is similar to when we say tens numbers in Bahasa Indonesia, which is tens numbers + ones. Here are some examples:

28	32	46	54	68
Twenty-eight	Thirty-two	Forty-six	Fifty-four	Fifty-eight

 

Between the tens and the ones, we separate them with a dash (-) which is called a hyphen.

1. Hundreds

Hundreds are the numbers starting from 100 to 999. You will easily remember the hundreds in English when you understand how the pattern works. Here it goes:

 

100	200	300
One hundred	Two hundred	Three hundred
400	500	600
Four hundred	Five hundred	Six hundred
700	800	900
Seven hundred	Eight hundred	Nine hundred

 

Hundreds followed by tens have the same pattern with tens followed by ones. First write the hundreds, followed by the tens then the ones.

Here are some examples:

128	216	482	626	821
One hundred and twenty-eight	Two hundred and sixteen	Four hundred and eighty-two	Six hundred and twenty-six	Eight hundred and twenty-one

 

1. Thousands

Now is the thousands. The thousands number consists of units of thousands, tens of thousands, to hundreds of thousands.

 

How to write it in English is pretty much the same as how you write the hundreds, just add “thousands” at the end instead of hundreds. Here are some examples:

Thousands	1,000	4,000
	One thousand	Four thousand
Tens of thousands	60,000	88,0000
	Sixty thousand	Eighty-eight thousand
Hundreds of thousands	200,000	600,000
	Two hundred thousand	Six hundred thousand

 

You may sometimes find thousands followed by ones, tens, or hundreds. The pattern of how to write it in English is basically the same. Here are some examples:

• How to write thousands followed by ones

1008	One thousand and eight
10,008	Ten thousand and eight

 

• How to write thousands followed by tens and ones

2,060	Two thousand and sixty
62,082	Sixty-two thousand and eighty-two

 

• How to write thousands followed by hundreds, tens and ones

6,800	Six thousand and eight hundred
2,182	Two thousand, one hundred and eighty-two

 

1. Millions

Millions also consist of units of millions, tens of millions up to hundreds of millions. It also has the same pattern of how to write it, just add “million” at the end of the numbers.

Here are some examples:

Millions	4,000,000
	Four millions
Tens of millions (Teens)	12,000,000
	Twelve millions
Tens of millions	28,000,000
	Twenty eight millions

 

Hundreds of millions	600,000,000
	Six hundred millions

 

To write millions followed by thousands, hundreds, tens and ones, you can look at these easy examples:

1,800,000	One million and eight hundred thousand
2,680,000	Two million, six hundred and eighty thousand
6,783,000	Six million, seven hundred and eighty-three thousand
80,128,500	Eighty million, one hundred and twenty-eight thousand, five hundred

 

Ordinal Numbers

The ordinal numbers are numbers used to state positions or sequences. Now to write ordinal numbers, we will break them down from numbers 1 – 31, according to the number of dates in a month. But this doesn’t mean the ordinal numbers only goes up to 31, for the following numbers, you just have to follow the previous patterns.

 

Here are some examples of how to write ordinal numbers:

1st	2nd	3rd	4th	5th
First	Second	Third	Fourth	Fifth
6th	7th	8th	9th	10th
Sixth	Seventh	Eighth	Ninth	Tenth
11th	12th	13th	14th	15th
Eleventh	Twelfth	Thirteenth	Fourteenth	Fifteenth
16th	17th	18th	19th	20th
Sixteenth	Seventeenth	Eighteenth	Nineteenth	Twentieth
21st	22nd	23rd	24th	25th
Twenty-first	Twenty-second	Twenty-third	Twenty-fourth	Twenty-fifth
26th	27th	28th	29th	30th
Twenty-sixth	Twenty-seventh	Twenty-eight	Twenty-ninth	Thirtieth
31st
Thirty-first

Now that you understood how to read and write numbers in English, and knew how to differentiate Cardinal and Ordinal numbers, let’s keep on practicing! There are many ways to do it one of them is to do it with songs. Who doesn’t like singing?