Last post I went over regular (or ‘cardinal’) numbers in Hungarian. This time I will be explaining ordinal numbers, which are essentially used to specify something’s position in an order. In English this would be ‘first, second, third, fourth…’ and so on. It might look complicated at first, but essentially all you do is add a suffix to the numbers to change them to ordinal ones (there are a few that change their stem, but for the most part it is pretty regular).
Posts to Review First:
Vowel Harmony
Cardinal Numbers (1, 2, 3…)
I will put the regular numbers side-by-side with their ordinal version here so you can compare more easily.
0-10
| Number | Regular (Cardinal) # | Ordinal # | Ordinal # (English) |
| 0 | nulla | nulladik | zeroth1 |
| 1 | egy | első | first (1st) |
| 2 | kettő/két | második | second (2nd) |
| 3 | három | harmadik | third (3rd) |
| 4 | négy | negyedik2 | fourth (4th) |
| 5 | öt | ötödik | fifth (5th) |
| 6 | hat | hatodik | sixth (6th) |
| 7 | hét | hetedik3 | seventh (7th) |
| 8 | nyolc | nyolcadik | eighth (8th) |
| 9 | kilenc | kilencedik | ninth (9th) |
| 10 | tíz | tizedik4 | tenth (10th) |
1I don’t imagine you will encounter this one often, though a fun fact my friend told me is that a class starting at 7:30am in high school is referred to as “nulladik óra” (zeroth hour).
2/3Note that ‘négy’ and ‘hét’ both loose their accent markers here. Same with ‘tíz’.
You may have noticed that, besides the few that change stem, essentially you just add some form of -dik to the end of the number.
There are exceptions (see: hatodik) but the rough rules are:
back-vowel word ending in consonant: -adik
front-vowel word ending in consonant: -edik
front-vowel (rounded) word ending in consonant: -ödik
word ending in vowel: -dik
11-19
| Number | Regular (Cardinal) # | Ordinal # | Ordinal # (English) |
| 11 | tizenegy | tizenegyedik | eleventh (11th) |
| 12 | tizenkettő/tizenkét | tizenkettedik1 | twelfth (12th) |
| 13 | tizenhárom | tizenharmadik2 | thirteenth (13th) |
| 14 | tizennégy | tizennegyedik | fourteenth (14th) |
| 15 | tizenöt | tizenötödik | fifteenth (15th) |
| 16 | tizenhat | tizenhatodik | sixteenth (16th) |
| 17 | tizenhét | tizenhetedik | seventeeth (17th) |
| 18 | tizennyolc | tizennyolcadik | eighteenth (18th) |
| 19 | tizenkilenc | tizenkilencedik | nineteenth (19th) |
1/2Besides these two changing up somewhat, there is not much variation.
Multiples of 10
| Number | Regular (Cardinal) # | Ordinal # | Ordinal # (English) |
| 20 | húsz | huszadik | twentieth (20th) |
| 30 | harminc | harmincadik | thirtieth (30th) |
| 40 | negyven | negyvenedik | fortieth (40th) |
| 50 | ötven | ötvenedik | fiftieth (50th) |
| 60 | hatvan | hatvanadik | sixtieth (60th) |
| 70 | hetven | hetvenedik | seventieth (70th) |
| 80 | nyolcvan | nyolcvanadik | eightieth (80th) |
| 90 | kilencven | kilencvenedik | ninetieth (90th) |
Not so scary, right? The Hungarian version honestly looks much easier to me than the ones in English ending in ‘tietheethehtheteh’.
100+
| Number | Regular (Cardinal) # | Ordinal # | Ordinal # (English) |
| 100 | száz | századik | hundreth (100th) |
| 1000 | ezer | ezredik | thousandth (1000th) |
| 10,000 | tízezer | tízezredik | ten-thousandth (10,000th) |
| 100,000 | százezer | százezredik | hundred-thousandth (100,000th) |
| 1,000,000 | (egy)millió | (egy)milliomodik | one millionth |
Examples in Between
As you can hopefully see, the numbers are (mostly) the same as in their cardinal form, and you just have to remember which version of ‘-dik’ to add on.
| Number | Regular (Cardinal) # | Ordinal # |
| 55 | ötvenöt | ötvenötödik |
| 71 | hetvenegy | hetvenegyedik |
| 142 | száznegyvenkettő/két | száznegyvenkettedik |
| 200 | kétszáz | kétszázadik |
| 203 | kétszázhárom | kétszázharmadik |
| 1500 | ezerötszáz | ezerötszázadik |
| 2400 | kétezernégyszáz | kétezernégyszázadik |
| 10,600 | tízezerhatszáz | tízezerhatszázadik |
| 125,865 | százhuszonötezernyolcszázhatvanöt | százhuszonötezernyolcszázhatvanötödik |
Numbers can be tricky, but I find the Hungarian system to be fairly straightforward. Don’t hesitate to message/comment if you have any questions.
Better Hungarian 
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