Numbers 20-1000+ in Russian

In Brief

Russian puts the parts of a large number in descending order, without and: двести пятьдесят три means “two hundred fifty-three.” With a counted noun, the ending of the whole number normally controls its form: двадцать один рубль, двадцать два рубля, двадцать пять рублей. However, numbers ending in 11–14 always follow the 5–20 pattern: сто одиннадцать рублей.

Overview

Numbers above 20 appear everywhere: prices, ages, addresses, distances, room numbers, populations, and years. At A1, the main task is to learn the forms for the tens and hundreds, then combine them in a predictable order. Russian does not normally insert a word equivalent to English “and” inside a cardinal number (a number that tells how many): сто двадцать пять, literally “one hundred twenty-five.”

The second task is choosing the form of the noun being counted. A noun is a word for a person, place, thing, or idea, such as студент “student” or книга “book.” Russian uses one form after numbers ending in 1, another after numbers ending in 2–4, and a third after 5–9, zero, and the teens. This continues with large numbers, so learning один год — два года — пять лет gives you the pattern for двадцать один год — двадцать два года — двадцать пять лет.

The beginner rules below describe quantities in their basic dictionary-style form, as in Здесь сто домов “There are one hundred houses here.” In other sentence roles, both numerals and nouns can change for case (a set of forms showing a word’s role in a sentence). Those changes belong to the later topic of numeral declension and are introduced separately under Advanced Use.

How It Works

The tens

Most tens from 50 to 80 visibly contain a shortened form of the number plus -десят “ten.” The forms for 20, 30, 40, and 90 must simply be learned.

Number	Russian	Helpful observation
20	двадцать	irregular form
30	тридцать	irregular form
40	сорок	completely irregular
50	пятьдесят	five + tens
60	шестьдесят	six + tens
70	семьдесят	seven + tens
80	восемьдесят	eight + tens
90	девяносто	irregular form

To make a number such as 23 or 68, say the ten first and the unit second:

• 21: двадцать один
• 34: тридцать четыре
• 57: пятьдесят семь
• 99: девяносто девять

The words are written separately. Do not add a hyphen and do not insert и “and.”

The hundreds

The Russian hundreds have special forms. Several are historically compounds, but it is easiest to learn each as one written word.

Number	Russian
100	сто
200	двести
300	триста
400	четыреста
500	пятьсот
600	шестьсот
700	семьсот
800	восемьсот
900	девятьсот

Add tens and units after the hundred, again from largest to smallest:

• 105: сто пять
• 240: двести сорок
• 318: триста восемнадцать
• 753: семьсот пятьдесят три
• 999: девятьсот девяносто девять

Russian says сто, not a phrase equivalent to “one hundred”: there is no один before it. A zero in the middle is not spoken, so 507 is пятьсот семь, not a word-for-word reading of each digit.

One thousand and larger numbers

The basic word for 1,000 is тысяча. Unlike English thousand, it behaves as a feminine noun and has plural quantity forms:

Number	Russian	Literal structure
1,000	одна тысяча or тысяча	one thousand
2,000	две тысячи	two thousands
3,000	три тысячи	three thousands
4,000	четыре тысячи	four thousands
5,000	пять тысяч	five thousands
21,000	двадцать одна тысяча	twenty-one thousand
25,000	двадцать пять тысяч	twenty-five thousand

Because тысяча is feminine, use одна, not один, and две, not два. When another quantity follows, simply continue: 1,253 is тысяча двести пятьдесят три; 2,048 is две тысячи сорок восемь.

For reference, миллион “million” and миллиард “billion” are masculine nouns: один миллион, два миллиона, пять миллионов. English billion corresponds to Russian миллиард; Russian биллион is not the normal everyday term.

Choosing the noun form

In the basic counting pattern, look at the end of the complete number. The relevant forms are the nominative singular (the basic singular form), genitive singular, and genitive plural. “Genitive” is the name of a case; after numbers, it marks the item being counted.

Number ending	Noun form	Example
1, but not 11	nominative singular	двадцать один студент
2–4, but not 12–14	genitive singular	тридцать два студента
0, 5–9, or 11–19	genitive plural	сорок студентов, сто двенадцать студентов

The last two digits matter, not only the final digit. This is why 21 and 101 use the “one” pattern, but 11 and 111 use the teen pattern:

• двадцать один рубль — 21 rubles
• сто один рубль — 101 rubles
• одиннадцать рублей — 11 rubles
• сто одиннадцать рублей — 111 rubles

The numeral один agrees in gender with the noun: двадцать один билет (masculine), двадцать одна книга (feminine), двадцать одно место (neuter). With 2, masculine and neuter nouns use два, while feminine nouns use две: тридцать два билета, тридцать два места, but тридцать две книги. Only this final one or two changes; the earlier parts remain unchanged in the basic form.

Some common nouns have an irregular genitive plural, so counting can reveal a form that is not obvious from the dictionary entry. Compare год — два года — пять лет, человек — два человека — пять человек, and рубль — два рубля — пять рублей. Learn frequent nouns as a three-part set rather than trying to guess every plural.

Examples in Context

Russian	English	Note
Мне двадцать один год.	I am twenty-one years old.	Ends in 1, but not 11.
В группе двадцать две студентки.	There are twenty-two female students in the group.	Feminine две + genitive singular.
Автобус приедет через тридцать минут.	The bus will arrive in thirty minutes.	Exact ten + genitive plural.
Билет стоит сорок четыре рубля.	The ticket costs forty-four rubles.	Ends in 4, but not 14.
У нас пятьдесят восемь заказов.	We have fifty-eight orders.	Ends in 8 + genitive plural.
В книге сто одна страница.	The book has 101 pages.	Feminine одна because the number ends in 1.
В зале сто двенадцать мест.	There are 112 seats in the hall.	12 overrides the final 2.
На счёте двести пятьдесят три рубля.	The bill comes to 253 rubles.	The whole number ends in 3.
До города триста километров.	It is three hundred kilometres to the city.	Exact hundred + genitive plural.
В школе учатся четыреста два ученика.	402 pupils attend the school.	The whole number ends in 2.
Здесь живёт тысяча человек.	One thousand people live here.	тысяча governs человек.
В архиве две тысячи документов.	There are two thousand documents in the archive.	Feminine две with тысячи.
В городе двадцать одна тысяча жителей.	The city has twenty-one thousand residents.	21 controls тысяча; тысяча controls жителей.
На стадионе двадцать пять тысяч зрителей.	There are twenty-five thousand spectators in the stadium.	25 takes тысяч, followed by genitive plural.

Common Mistakes

Treating every number ending in 1–4 alike

• Wrong: сто одиннадцать рубль
• Right: сто одиннадцать рублей
• Why: Check the final two digits. Numbers ending in 11–14 take a genitive plural noun, regardless of their last digit.

Making the noun simply singular or plural as in English

• Wrong: двадцать два книги
• Right: двадцать две книги
• Why: After 2–4, the noun takes the genitive singular form; feminine книга becomes книги. The numeral must also be feminine: две.

Adding “and” inside a number

• Wrong: двести и пятьдесят три for 253
• Right: двести пятьдесят три
• Why: Russian cardinal numbers normally place the parts next to each other without и. The conjunction can join separate quantities, but it is not part of the number name.

Writing hundreds as separate words

• Wrong: пять сот for 500
• Right: пятьсот
• Why: The standard hundreds from 200 to 900 are single words: двести, триста, четыреста, пятьсот, and so on.

Using masculine forms with тысяча

• Wrong: два тысячи, двадцать один тысяча
• Right: две тысячи, двадцать одна тысяча
• Why: тысяча is feminine, so 1 and 2 take the feminine forms одна and две.

Saying every written zero

• Wrong: пятьсот ноль семь for the quantity 507
• Right: пятьсот семь
• Why: In an ordinary quantity, an empty place is omitted. Digit-by-digit reading is used for items such as telephone numbers, codes, and sometimes account numbers.

Usage Notes

Russian normally uses spaces between the word components of a compound number: триста сорок два. In figures, modern Russian typography commonly groups long numbers with spaces, for example 25 000, rather than with an English comma. A comma is the decimal separator: 2,5 means “two point five.”

Years are quantities when naming the year number, but Russian usually expresses them with an ordinal number (a form meaning “first,” “second,” and so on): две тысячи двадцать шестой год “the year 2026.” That is a separate pattern from counting две тысячи двадцать шесть книг “2,026 books.” Addresses, bus routes, room numbers, and page labels may also behave as labels rather than ordinary quantities, so their surrounding grammar can differ.

In careful pronunciation, stress matters in several forms, especially пятьдеся́т, шестьдеся́т, семьдеся́т, восемьдеся́т and пятьсо́т. Listening and repeating whole numbers is more useful than relying only on spelling.

Beyond the Basics / Advanced Use

You do not need to master numeral declension at A1, but you will soon meet large numbers outside the basic counting form. Russian changes numerals for case after prepositions and according to sentence function. For example, basic двадцать страниц “twenty pages” becomes на двадцати страницах “on twenty pages.” In с двумя друзьями “with two friends,” both the numeral and noun change.

Compound numerals can require more than one component to decline: к двумстам пятидесяти рублям means “toward/to 250 rubles.” Hundreds have particularly distinctive case forms. This is why it is better for a beginner to learn the clear nominative/accusative quantity pattern first and study the full system under numeral declension later.

There is also an important grammatical distinction with animate masculine nouns (nouns referring to people or animals). In the direct-object position, Я вижу двадцать одного студента means “I see twenty-one students”: the final один and the noun use forms associated with animacy. Compare the subject Двадцать один студент пришёл “Twenty-one students arrived.” This is a regular part of the case system, not an exception to how 21 is built.

Collective numerals such as двое “a group of two” and approximate expressions such as человек двадцать “about twenty people” add further choices. They are common, but they are not needed to form exact numbers. First make the standard order automatic: двадцать человек means exactly twenty people; reversing it can signal an estimate.

Finally, agreement of verbs and adjectives with quantified noun phrases can vary with meaning and style. A singular verb often presents the group as one quantity (Сто человек пришло), while a plural verb can emphasize the individuals (Сто человек пришли). At beginner level, focus on recognizing both; the choice becomes clearer as you gain experience with Russian agreement and style.

Practice Tips

1. Build numbers in layers. Pick five figures each day and say the hundreds, then tens, then units: 684 → шестьсот + восемьдесят + четыре. Include figures with internal zeroes, such as 305 and 1,042.
2. Drill nouns in four-number sets. Use 21, 22, 25, and 11 with one noun: двадцать один билет, двадцать два билета, двадцать пять билетов, одиннадцать билетов. Then repeat with a feminine noun so you practise одна/две.
3. Use real-world material. Read prices, distances, sports scores, and population figures aloud. Then listen to a native recording or text-to-speech model and check the stress and whether the number was read as a quantity or digit by digit.

Related Concepts

• Prerequisite: Numbers 1–20 — provides the unit and teen forms that determine noun agreement in larger numbers.
• Next step: Numeral Declension — explains how numerals and their nouns change across Russian cases.