Spanish: An Essential Grammar

Uno

(a) This agrees in gender with a following noun:

una manzana one apple treinta y una thirty-one

páginas pages

Note: Regular usage has established that even when modifying a feminine noun, the

feminine form unais no longer widely used beforemil: cincuenta y un mil personas

‘51,000 persons’.

(b) The masculine form becomes unbeforea masculine noun, whether used

on its own or as part of a larger numeral:

un diccionario one dictionary sesenta y un sixty-one

libros books

Note: For reasons of stress, see 1.3, a written accent is required on ‘twenty-one’:

veintiún años.

The feminine formunais not shortened before feminine nouns, except

when it directly precedes a noun beginning with a stressed a-or ha-:

cuarenta y un águilas forty-one eagles

(c) Un is not generally used before cientoand mil: cien/mil libros‘a hun-

dred/a thousand books’. Exceptions are cases like the following: doscientos

unmil cuarenta‘201,040’ (because doscientos mil cuarentais ‘200,040’).

23.1.1

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

240

Approximate numbers

Approximate rather than exact numbers can be expressed by placing

unos/asbefore a cardinal number: Está a unos cien kilómetros de la

costa‘It’s about a hundred kilometres from the coast’.

Alternative methods are to use the following: aproximadamente,

alrededor de,más o menos,cerca de,cosa de,cosa así, como: Es cosa

de 25 centímetros‘It’s about 25 centimetres’, cien kilómetros o cosa

así‘a hundred kilometres or thereabouts’, situado como a 6 millas

de la costa‘situated at some 6 miles from the coast’.

5 Cardinal numbers occur as masculine nouns: Escribí un dos en vez de un cuatro

‘I wrote a two instead of a four’.