Dialogue

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Lesson Transcript

Counting to 100 in Mexican Spanish
In this lesson we’re going to continue with counting from 11 to 100.
Let’s just quickly review 0-10.
0 cero
1 un
una if the thing you’re counting is feminine
2 dos
3 tres
4 cuatro
5 cinco
6 seis
7 siete
8 ocho
9 nueve
10 diez
Now let’s continue with 11 to 20.
11 once
(slow) on-ce
once
12 doce
(slow) do-ce
doce
13 trece
(slow) tre-ce
trece
14 catorce
(slow) ca-tor-ce
catorce
15 quince
(slow) quin-ce
quince
16 dieciseis
(slow) di-e-ci-seis
diecises
17 diecisiete
(slow) di-e-ci-si-e-te
diecisiete
18 dieciocho
(slow) di-e-ci-o-cho
dieciocho
19 diecinueve
(slow) di-e-ci-nu-e-ve
diecinueve
20 veinte
(slow) ve-in-te
veinte
You probably noticed that from the number 16 to 19, the beginning of the words sound similar. Dieci implies “ten”which is diez, and the word “and” which is y. The spelling changes in both words, to get the word dieciseis - D-I-E-C-I-S-E-I-S, diecisiete, and so on. That would literally means “ten and six”, “ten and seven”, and so on. This will help you remember those numbers.
After that, we have the numbers for 20, 30, 40, and so on. Let's look at 20 first.
20 veinte
(slow) ve-in-te
veinte
30 treinta
(slow) tre-in-ta
treinta
40 cuarenta
(slow) cu-a-ren-ta
cuarenta
50 cincuenta
(slow) cin-cuen-ta
cincuenta
60 sesenta
(slow) se-sen-ta
sesenta
70 setenta
(slow) se-ten-ta
setenta
80 ochenta
(slow) o-chen-ta
ochenta
90 noventa
(slow) no-ven-ta
noventa
Finally, we have cien, which is “one hundred.”
100 cien
(slow) cien
cien
Now that we’ve learned the tens, let’s learn counting the numbers that are in between.
21 is veintiuno, and is composed of the words:
veinte - “twenty”
y - “and”
and
uno - “one”.
The whole number veintiuno is literally translated as “twenty and one”, and is the number 21.
Let’s make a sentence using this number now.
“I am 21 years old.”
Yo tengo veintiún años.
Let’s break it down:
(slow) Yo ten-go ve-in-ti-ún a-ños.
Once again:
Yo tengo veintiún años.
First we have yo which means "I".
Next we have tengo meaning “have”
(slow) ten-go
tengo
The next word, veintiún, as we learned before, means “twenty-one”.
This word is spelled a little bit differently, to fit into the context of the sentence. This happens often in Spanish, but don’t worry, you will get used to it little by little.
In this case, we know that uno means “one”, and since we are “counting” the years a person has lived, we use un, just like we learned in the last lesson, un hombre, “one man”.
Another change you might notice if you see this written down is the accent over the letter u (ú). In Spanish, there are specific rules that indicate when to write an accent and when to omit it. Again, you don't need to worry about that now.
The last word, años, means "years."
(slow) a-ños
años
Altogether, we have
Yo tengo veintiún años.
Let’s try saying another number in Spanish, “fifty–three.” “Fifty” is cincuenta and “three” is tres. Putting them together, we have cincuenta y tres: “fifty-three.
Let’s break it down:
(slow) cin-cu-en-ta y tres.
And once more:
cincuenta y tres.
As you can see, in this case we have three separate words, instead of combining them into one. After the number thirty, which is treinta, you will write them separately.
Let’s use cincuenta y tres to say “I have fifty-three pesos”:
Tengo cincuenta y tres pesos.
Let’s break that down:
(slow) Ten-go cin-cu-en-ta y tres pe-sos.
And at natural speed:
Tengo cincuenta y tres pesos.
Tengo is translated as “I have”. Here, the “I” was omitted.
We just learned that cincuenta y tres means “fifty-three”.
The next word is pesos, the Mexican currency.
(slow) pe-sos
pesos
The whole sentence, then, is -
Tengo cincuenta y tres pesos.
To close out today's lessons, we’d like you to practice what you have just learned. I’ll provide you with the English equivalent of the phrase and you’re responsible for shouting it out loud. You’ll have a few seconds before I give you the answer, so !buena suerte! which means “Good luck!” in Spanish.
“I am twenty-one years old.”
(3 secs) Yo tengo veintiún años.
(slow) Yo ten-go ve-in-ti-ún a-ños.
Yo tengo veintiún años.
“I have fifty-three pesos”
(3 secs) Tengo cincuenta y tres pesos.
(slow) Ten-go cin-cu-en-ta y tres pe-sos.
Tengo cincuenta y tres pesos.
Alright! That's going to do it for this lesson. Hasta luego.

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