
© RTL / Julia Maaluf
Counting up to 100 is all well and good, but at some point, you want to go beyond. Fortunately, talking about the big numbers in Luxembourgish is not a ter
Fortunately, talking about the big numbers in Luxembourgish is not a terribly difficult concept to grasp!
Nice to have you back for more Language Basics! In this lesson, we're once again talking about numbers, this time focusing on three digits and above.
In Language Basics 1, we learned how to count up to 100. As a quick reminder, we've established that the pattern to form these numbers is the reverse of what English does (zweeanzwanzeg instead of twenty-two). We also already know that "(one) hundred" translates to (een) honnert. Knowing all of this, counting beyond 100 actually becomes very easy:
Example: one hundred and fourty-seven -> eenhonnertsiwenavéierzeg
As for the hundreds themselves, they basically translate directly from English.
two hundred -> zweehonnert
three hundred -> dräihonnert
four hundred -> véierhonnert
…etc
Now, there's only a few more numbers you actually need to learn:
(one) thousand -> (een)dausend
(one) million -> (eng) Millioun
But watch out for this:
(one) billion -> (eng) Milliard
(one) trillion -> (eng) Billioun
The pattern for all of these big numbers remains basically the same as in English (with the exception of the two-digit parts, of course):
two thousand, eight hundred and fifty-nine -> zweedausendaachthonnertnéngafofzeg
five hundred and ninety-eight thousand, three hundred and forty-two
-> fënnefhonnertaachtannonzegdausenddräihonnertzweeavéierzeg
What you may notice is that contrary to English, Luxembourgish has a bit of a cumbersome way to write these big numbers out. Realistically, it is, of course, very unlikely that you will ever need to be able to do that. If your focus is on speaking Luxembourgish, the only thing to remember here is that in contrast to English, Luxembourgish just strings the numbers together without separating them with any "ands" (five hundred and ninety-eight à fënnefhonnnertaachtannnonnzeg).
Congratulations, now you can deal with pretty much any number the Luxembourgish language might throw at you!
Vocabulary list – Time and Dates
Finally, here is some more general time-related vocabulary list for Lesson 4:
Nouns
the morning -> de Moien
the noon -> de Mëtteg
the evening -> den Owend
the day -> den Dag
the week -> d'Woch
the month -> de Mount
the year -> d'Joer
Adverbs
today -> haut
yesterday -> gëschter
the day before yesterday -> virgëschter
tomorrow -> muer
the day after tomorrow -> iwwermuer
recently -> kierzlech