Danish Ordinal Numbers
Ordinal numbers tell you the order of things: 1st, 2nd, 3rd. In Danish, most ordinals end in -te or -nde, and the first three (første, anden, tredje) are irregular and worth memorising.
1st – 10th
#
Ordinal
English
1.
første
first
2.
anden / andet
second
3.
tredje
third
4.
fjerde
fourth
5.
femte
fifth
6.
sjette
sixth
7.
syvende
seventh
8.
ottende
eighth
9.
niende
ninth
10.
tiende
tenth
anden vs andet
Like other adjectives, anden (common gender) changes to andet with et-words: den anden bil (the second car) but det andet hus (the second house).
Higher ordinals
From 11 onwards, most ordinals add -nde to the cardinal number:
#
Ordinal
English
11.
ellevte
eleventh
12.
tolvte
twelfth
20.
tyvende
twentieth
21.
enogtyvende
twenty-first
100.
hundrede
hundredth
1000.
tusinde
thousandth
How they're written
Danish writes ordinals as a number followed by a period:
- den 1. januar = the 1st of January
- den 21. juni = the 21st of June
- vores 3. barn = our 3rd child
The period is the cue to read the number as an ordinal.
Where you'll see ordinals
Dates (den 5. maj — the 5th of May), floors (på 3. sal — on the 3rd floor), rankings (han kom på en flot 2. plads — he came in a fine 2nd place), and centuries (i det 21. århundrede — in the 21st century).