Concetti Chiave
- Ordinal numbers indicate positions within a sequence, essential for organizing lists, dates, and events.
- In English, ordinal numbers are consistent across gender, unlike in Italian.
- The creation of ordinal numbers usually involves adding -th to a cardinal number, with exceptions like first, second, and third.
- For numbers like 22nd or 31st, use a dash to separate tens from units, with specific endings -st, -nd, -rd for units.
- Numbers ending in -ty, like 50 or 80, change to -ieth in ordinal form, e.g., fiftieth and eightieth.
Indice
Use of Ordinal numbers
Ordinal numbers are relevant for our daily life since they indicate which place a number occupy in a context made of other numbers and their positions. In this way, an order is given and it can be state what comes before and what after.
Concretely, Ordinal numbers are used to draw up placements and lists, for dates and centuries, birthdays or anniversaries.
Some examples can be:
“I found out only today that the 17th of March I’ll have a Math test”
(ho scoperto solo ora che il 17 marzo avrò una verifica di matematica)
“Lucy told me that she was the third of four children”
(Lucia mi ha detto che è la terza di quattro figli)
“Even though the athlete got injured, he managed to come second in the race”
(anche se l’atleta si è fatto male è riuscito ad arrivare secondo in gara)
"The husband had a look to the shopping list his wife made for him: he needed to buy milk first and then eggs"
(il marito ha dato un'occhiata alla lista della spesa fatta dalla moglie per lui: deve comprare il latte per primo e poi le uova)
It can be noticed that, differently from Italian, that Ordinal numbers are the same both for feminine and masculine nouns.
Table of Ordinal numbers from 1 through 1,000,000
1st first2nd second
3rd third
4th fourth
5th fifth
6th sixth
7th seventh
8th eighth
9th ninth
10th tenth
11th eleventh
12th twelfth
13th thirteenth
14th fourteenth
15th fifteenth
16th sixteenth
17th seventeenth
18th eighteenth
19th nineteenth
20th twentieth
21st twenty-first
22nd twenty-second
23rd twenty-third
24th twenty-fourth
25th twenty-fifth
26th twenty-sixth
27th twenty-seventh
28th twenty-eighth
29th twenty-ninth
30th thirtieth
31st thirty-first
40th fortieth
50th fiftieth
60th sixtieth
70th seventieth
80th eightieth
90th ninetieth
100th one hundredth
1,000th one thousandth
1,000,000th one millionth
Exceptions in the creation of Ordinal numbers
The process of creating an ordinal number is normally quite simple and regular, as the table shows, because it is only required to add -th at the end of a cardinal number but there are some exceptions that needs to be pointed out.For example, the first three numbers (one, two, three) have their own forms which are first, second and third.
These forms are used also in the units (the number in second position) of double digits while the number in the first position represent the tens.
For example 22nd should be written as twenty-second or 31st as thirty-first and 43rd as forty-third.
As it can be seen, all the Ordinal numbers from twenty-first (21st) contains a dash which divides tens from units and the abbreviations at the end of the units are not -th for the first three numbers but -st, -nd and -rd.
Moreover, when we talk about tens which terminate as -ty like fifty (50) or eighty (80), -th is substituted by -ieth so 50th will be fiftieth and 80th eightieth.
In the end, numbers as 5, 9, 8, 12 have a different forms from the canonical ones because they are written as fifth, ninth, eighth and twelfth.
Domande da interrogazione
- Qual è l'importanza dei numeri ordinali nella vita quotidiana?
- Come si formano generalmente i numeri ordinali?
- Quali sono le eccezioni nella formazione dei numeri ordinali?
- Come si scrivono i numeri ordinali composti da due cifre?
- Qual è la differenza tra i numeri ordinali in inglese e in italiano?
I numeri ordinali sono importanti perché indicano la posizione di un numero in un contesto, permettendo di stabilire un ordine e di capire cosa viene prima e cosa dopo.
I numeri ordinali si formano aggiungendo -th alla fine di un numero cardinale, ma ci sono eccezioni per i primi tre numeri e per alcuni numeri specifici.
Le eccezioni includono i primi tre numeri (first, second, third) e numeri come 5, 9, 8, 12 che diventano fifth, ninth, eighth e twelfth. Inoltre, i numeri che terminano in -ty cambiano in -ieth.
I numeri ordinali composti da due cifre usano un trattino per dividere le decine dalle unità, e le unità usano le abbreviazioni -st, -nd, -rd per i primi tre numeri.
In inglese, i numeri ordinali sono gli stessi sia per i sostantivi femminili che maschili, a differenza dell'italiano dove possono variare.
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