Spanish: An Essential Grammar

‘average/mean’: media luna‘a half moon’, la temperatura media‘the average

temperature’, (iii) as an adverbit means ‘half’: Ella está medio dormida‘She is

half asleep’. In Latin America it also means ‘rather’: Ella es medio linda[LA]

‘She is rather pretty’.

2 La mitad‘half’ is used in non-arithmetical contexts: Le regaló la mitad de sus

libros‘He gave her half of his books’.

In everyday use fractions besides^1 / 2 are often expressed by the feminine

form of the ordinal + parte/s (this can be omitted in some cases):

la/una tercera parte a third siete décimas seven tenths

From^1 / 11 onwards

In technical language, from^1 / 11 onwards fractions are formed by adding

-avoto cardinal numbers, unless these end in -a, in which case only -vois

added:

un catorceavo^1 / 14 nueve dieciseisavos^9 / 16

un sesentavo^1 / 60

A hundredth is centavo/centésimoand a thousandth milésimo.

Note: In Latin America, but still infrequently in Peninsular usage, the fractional

forms ending in -avoare used as ordinals: el doceavo tomo[LA] instead of el

duodécimo tomoor el tomo número doce ‘the twelfth volume’.

Collective and multiple numerals

Collective numerals are nouns which specify groups. With the exception of

par, docenaand quincena, they frequently express approximate rather than

exact numbers:

una centena/ a hundred un par a pair/couple

un centenar

una cuarentenaforty una quincena a fortnight, two weeks

una decena ten una treintenathirty

una docena a dozen una veintena twenty, a score

un millar a thousand

23.4.1

23.4

23.3.2

1111

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1011

1

12111

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

20111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

30111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

40

41111

23

Numerals and
numerical
expressions

246