Learn the Russian Numbers from 1 to 1000 Without Going Crazy

If you want to learn to speak Russian, it’s mandatory to learn the Russian numbers.

Maybe you’ve tried learning them before and found it difficult.

But in reality, it doesn’t have to be difficult to learn numbers in Russian.

How to learn the Russian cardinal numbers?

Just like in the English language, the Russian cardinal numbers have a system to them. So instead of needing to learn 1000 different numbers for the numbers 1-1000, you can simply learn the system. Then, you can combine around 35 different numbers to create all the other number combinations.

So focus on learning those couple of essential ones. And then work on combining them.

Russian numbers 1-10

Let’s start this lesson with the first Russian numbers one to ten. These are the fundamentals of knowing how to count in Russian.

Take your time to go through these Russian numbers. Don’t hurry. Read them a couple of times, and see if you can remember them. And try to focus on your own pronunciation of the Russian numbers.

Important here is that the first two numbers (one and two) change their ending based on the noun that follows. If a noun is masculine, you use the standard ending. If a noun is feminine, you use the feminine ending. The same thing works for the neuter ending (but only for the number one):

Count to 20 in Russian

Let’s continue counting. For the numbers 11-19, all you need to do is:

• subtract 10.
• Take the original number.
• Remove the last letter if it’s a soft sign or a vowel.
• Then you want to be adding надцать to the word that’s left

An example for the number 14.

The original number is 4: четыре.

So the number for 14 is: четырнадцать.

Simple, right?

See if you can find the original numbers from 110 to 20 in the following list:

Did you see I added the number 20 there at the end? Can you find out how I made it?

You can see that it’s basically just the regular number for 2: два.

With the addition of дцать.

дцать is the old word for 10 in the Russian language. That’s also why 17 for example is literally in old Russian: seven-after-ten.

This only works for the numbers 20 and 30. After that, they sometimes become irregular or add the regular word for 10: десят (without the soft sign ь). You’ll see those Russian numbers below.

How to count to 100 in Russian

Now, for the numbers after 20, we use a little different rule. It’s actually similar to the English language, where we also use compound numbers.

Compound numbers are numbers that consist of 2 different numbers.

For example, the word for 21 is:  – двадцать один (dvadtsat’ odin)

It consists of 20 and 1. Easy, right?

So the rest of all the numbers to 99 work the same way.

The only exceptions are some of the multiples of 10. They can have their own words. You’ll see those examples below:

Russian numbers 100 and beyond

The words for the Russian numbers after 100 work similarly. For example, the word for 176 is:

сто семьдесят шесть (sto semdecyat’ shest’).

Some of the larger Russian numbers are:

As you can see, some of the numbers here change a bit. Examples are 200 vs 600. Why does the word for 100 (сто) change? That’s because Russian has cases, and depending on the number, this can change the noun afterward. It’s a difficult part of Russian grammar, so don’t worry if you don’t completely get it right away. Please read my article on the genitive case for more information.

Russian ordinal numbers

The ordinal Russian numbers are different from their cardinal counterparts. Here they are:

Bear in mind that ordinal numbers are adjectives. And thus also change according to the Russian grammar rules.