Ordinal Numbers in Danish

In Brief

Danish ordinal numbers show position in an order: første “first,” anden/andet “second,” tredje “third,” and fjerde “fourth.” Most forms do not change, but “second” is anden with an en-word and andet with an et-word: den anden dag but det andet forsøg. In figures, Danish marks an ordinal with a full stop: 1., 2., 3.

Overview

A cardinal number tells you how many: en, to, tre (“one, two, three”). An ordinal number tells you where something comes in a sequence: første, anden, tredje (“first, second, third”). You need ordinals for dates, floors, chapters, attempts, competitions, anniversaries, and instructions.

This is an A1 topic because a small set of forms covers many everyday situations. The forms are not always predictable from the cardinal numbers, so it is best to learn the first ten as vocabulary. Once you know the basic forms, longer ordinals such as enogtyvende (“twenty-first”) follow the normal Danish number order.

English and Danish often use ordinals in similar places, but their grammar is not identical. Danish commonly puts den, det, or de before an ordinal and a noun: den første dag, det tredje forsøg, de første uger. Danish dates also use a full stop after the numeral, and floor numbering may not match the convention you know from North American English.

How It Works

The essential forms

Learn these common ordinal numbers first:

Figure	Cardinal number	Ordinal number
1.	en/ét	første
2.	to	anden / andet
3.	tre	tredje
4.	fire	fjerde
5.	fem	femte
6.	seks	sjette
7.	syv	syvende
8.	otte	ottende
9.	ni	niende
10.	ti	tiende
11.	elleve	ellevte
12.	tolv	tolvte
13.	tretten	trettende
14.	fjorten	fjortende
15.	femten	femtende
16.	seksten	sekstende
17.	sytten	syttende
18.	atten	attende
19.	nitten	nittende
20.	tyve	tyvende
21.	enogtyve	enogtyvende
22.	toogtyve	toogtyvende
30.	tredive	tredivte
31.	enogtredive	enogtredivte

Several spellings deserve attention: sjette has sj-, ottende has double t, and attende does not retain the spelling of atten unchanged. The form for 30th is tredivte, not a mechanically formed trediveende.

Danish compound numbers are written as one word. Just as 21 is enogtyve—literally “one-and-twenty”—21st is enogtyvende. The final part carries the ordinal form.

Ordinals before nouns

A noun is a word for a person, place, object, or idea, such as dag (“day”) or forsøg (“attempt”). When an ordinal comes before a definite noun, the usual pattern is:

den/det/de + ordinal + noun without a definite ending

Noun type	Pattern	Example	Meaning
singular en-word	den + ordinal + noun	den første dag	the first day
singular et-word	det + ordinal + noun	det tredje forsøg	the third attempt
plural	de + ordinal + plural noun	de første uger	the first weeks

The noun stays in its plain form: den første dag, not den første dagen. The article already marks the whole phrase as definite (“the particular one”).

After a possessive such as min (“my”) or a name showing ownership, no separate den/det/de is needed:

• min første bil — my first car
• vores tredje møde — our third meeting
• Marias fjerde bog — Maria’s fourth book

Some common prepositional expressions also omit the article:

• på første sal — on the first floor
• for anden gang — for the second time
• i første omgang — initially; in the first instance

These are established patterns. Do not try to insert or remove the article solely by copying English.

The special agreement of anden and andet

Danish nouns belong to one of two grammatical genders (noun classes that affect articles and some describing words): common gender with en, and neuter gender with et. Most ordinal forms remain unchanged:

• den første dag — en dag
• det første år — et år
• den tredje uge — en uge
• det tredje kapitel — et kapitel

“Second” is the important exception in the singular:

Noun	Gender	Correct phrase
en dag	common gender	den anden dag
en etage	common gender	den anden etage
et forsøg	neuter	det andet forsøg
et kapitel	neuter	det andet kapitel

This is agreement: the form changes to match the noun class. Learn anden/andet together with den/det, rather than treating anden as an invariable translation of English “second.”

Dates

In a written date, a full stop after the number marks it as an ordinal:

• den 1. maj — 1 May / May 1
• den 17. juni — 17 June / June 17
• den 31. december — 31 December / December 31

Read these aloud with ordinal words: den første maj, den syttende juni, den enogtredivte december. Month names normally begin with a lowercase letter in Danish: maj, juni, december.

In calendars and headings, the article may be absent: 5. oktober. In a full sentence, den is common: Mødet er den 5. oktober (“The meeting is on 5 October”). Fully numeric dates also use full stops, for example 05.10.2026. Do not replace the ordinal full stop with English endings such as 1st or 2nd in Danish text.

Floors, sequences, and labels

Use an ordinal when you describe an item’s position:

• den fjerde side — the fourth page
• det andet kapitel — the second chapter
• hendes tredje forsøg — her third attempt

Danish can instead use a cardinal number as a label after the noun:

• kapitel to — chapter two
• bus nummer fem — bus number five
• lektion tre — lesson three

The difference is similar to English “the second chapter” versus “chapter two.” The first describes order; the second names a numbered item.

For floors, stueetagen is the ground floor. Første sal is normally the level above it, so it often corresponds to the “second floor” in North American usage. Signs and local building terminology are more reliable than a direct English translation.

Examples in Context

Danish	English	Note
Det er min første dag på arbejdet.	It is my first day at work.	A possessive replaces den.
Vi mødes den anden tirsdag i måneden.	We meet on the second Tuesday of the month.	Tirsdag is an en-word, so use anden.
Det andet kapitel er meget kort.	The second chapter is very short.	Kapitel is an et-word, so use andet.
Det tredje forsøg lykkedes.	The third attempt succeeded.	Tredje does not change with gender.
Jeg bor på fjerde sal.	I live on the fourth floor.	Fixed floor expression without den.
Hun kom på femtepladsen.	She came in fifth place.	Femtepladsen is a compound noun.
I dag er det den sjette april.	Today is the sixth of April.	The date is spoken with an ordinal.
Toget kører den 12. august.	The train runs on 12 August.	Read 12. as tolvte.
Det er tredje gang, jeg ser filmen.	It is the third time I have seen the film.	Common pattern with gang.
De første to uger var travle.	The first two weeks were busy.	An ordinal and a cardinal can occur together.
Tag den anden dør til venstre.	Take the second door on the left.	A practical direction.
Hun læser sit enogtyvende kapitel.	She is reading her twenty-first chapter.	Compound ordinal written as one word.
Første række er reserveret.	The first row is reserved.	Headline/sign style can omit the article.
Hvem blev nummer to?	Who came second?	Nummer to is natural for a result or ranking.

Common Mistakes

Using anden with an et-word

• Wrong: den anden forsøg
• Right: det andet forsøg
• Why: Forsøg is an et-word. Both the article and “second” must use the neuter forms det andet.

Adding the definite ending to the noun

• Wrong: den første dagen
• Right: den første dag
• Why: In the pattern den + ordinal + noun, definiteness is already shown by den. The noun therefore has no definite ending.

Treating every ordinal like a regular ending

• Wrong: den trede dag or den seksende dag
• Right: den tredje dag; den sjette dag
• Why: The early forms contain irregular spellings. Memorise første, anden/andet, tredje, fjerde, femte, and sjette as complete words.

Forgetting the full stop after a numeral

• Wrong: den 3 marts
• Right: den 3. marts
• Why: In Danish, the full stop shows that 3. is ordinal: tredje. Without it, 3 is simply the cardinal number tre.

Copying English date order or capitalisation

• Wrong: Maj 1st in ordinary Danish prose
• Right: den 1. maj
• Why: Danish normally puts the day before the month, uses a full stop rather than -st/-nd/-rd/-th, and writes month names with lowercase initials.

Translating floor numbers without checking the system

• Wrong assumption: English “first floor” always means første sal.
• Better: Check whether the speaker means stueetagen or første sal.
• Why: Danish normally distinguishes the ground floor from første sal, the next level up. English conventions vary by region.

Usage Notes

Anden/andet can also mean “other” or “another”

The forms anden and andet are not always ordinal numbers. Compare:

• den anden dag — the second day, or in some contexts “the other day”
• en anden dag — another day
• det andet hus — the second house / the other house
• et andet hus — another house

Context and the article help. A definite phrase (den anden) often identifies the second or the other one in a known set. An indefinite phrase (en anden) normally means “another.” Also learn hver anden dag as “every other day,” not necessarily “every second calendar date” in a numbered list.

Første and først are different forms

Use første before or instead of a noun when you mean the ordinal “first”:

• den første gæst — the first guest
• Hun var den første. — She was the first one.

Use først as an adverb (a word that tells when or how something happens):

• Hun kom først. — She arrived first.
• Først spiser vi, og så går vi. — First we eat, and then we leave.

English uses “first” for both jobs, which makes this contrast easy to miss.

First place and second place

In rankings, Danish often prefers nummer et, nummer to, and so on, especially in speech: Han blev nummer to (“He came second”). Compound nouns are also common: førstepladsen (“first place”), andenpladsen (“second place”), and tredjepladsen (“third place”).

Beyond the Basics

You do not need to master all of these uses at A1, but they explain forms you will meet later.

Fractions built from ordinal forms

Many fraction words are related to ordinals:

• en tredjedel — one third
• en fjerdedel — one quarter
• en femtedel — one fifth

These are compound nouns, not ordinary adjective phrases. Notice the linking element in tredjedel and fjerdedel; do not simply place an ordinal before del without checking the established compound.

Organising an argument

The fixed expressions for det første and for det andet mean “firstly” and “secondly”:

• For det første er det dyrt. For det andet tager det lang tid. — Firstly, it is expensive. Secondly, it takes a long time.

Here det is part of the expression. This pattern is useful in presentations and more structured writing.

Historical names

Regnal numbers—numbers attached to monarchs—are written with figures in modern Danish, for example Christian 4. The number is read as an ordinal, traditionally with den: Christian den Fjerde. Capitalisation and naming conventions in historical titles are worth learning from the name as a whole rather than generalising from everyday date phrases.

Productive larger forms

Once the tens are familiar, compound ordinals work like compound cardinal numbers: toogtyvende (22nd) and enogtredivte (31st). In long formal numbers, spelling can become cumbersome, so figures with a full stop are frequent. The full stop remains meaningful: den 31. plads means “31st place.”

Practice Tips

1. Build two short chains. Say en, første; to, anden; tre, tredje through ten. Pairing each cardinal with its ordinal helps prevent forms such as trede.
2. Practise with noun gender. Choose five en-words and five et-words, then make phrases with “second”: den anden bog, det andet brev. This targets the only essential gender change in the basic ordinal set.
3. Read real dates aloud. Take a calendar and say five dates each day using den + ordinal + month: den syvende juli. Keep the written full stop visible so you connect 7. with syvende.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Numbers and Time — provides the cardinal numbers used to build and understand ordinal forms.
• Next step: Temporal Expressions — expands your ability to place events in time and talk about duration, sequence, and deadlines.