LingoflyDozens and hundreds: dozena bat, ehunka
Besides numbers, Basque has counting words. dozena bat — a dozen: Dozena bat arrautza — a dozen eggs. The tail -ka turns a number into "by the tens, by the hundreds": hamarka — in tens, ehunka lagun — hundreds of people, milaka — thousands. For example: “Berrogei bat lagun etorri dira kontzertura” — Some forty people came to the concert. A rule from the Basque course: worked out on examples, not memorized as a…
How it works
Besides numbers, Basque has counting words. dozena bat — a dozen: Dozena bat arrautza — a dozen eggs. The tail -ka turns a number into "by the tens, by the hundreds": hamarka — in tens, ehunka lagun — hundreds of people, milaka — thousands.
An approximate number is held by bat after it and by gutxi gorabehera: berrogei bat lagun — about forty people, gutxi gorabehera hiru litro — some three litres.
Table
| the meaning | the form | the example |
|---|---|---|
| a dozen | dozena bat | dozena bat arrautza |
| hundreds, thousands | ehunka, milaka | ehunka lagun |
| about | … bat | berrogei bat lagun |
By example
- We need about three liters of water
How the rule settles in your head
A rule is not memorized from an explanation. It is memorized from an attempt to use it and a mistake — that is why the app delivers it mixed in with words, not as a separate lesson: it resurfaces exactly where you forgot it.
Frequently asked
Dozens and hundreds: how does it work in Basque?
Besides numbers, Basque has counting words. dozena bat — a dozen: Dozena bat arrautza — a dozen eggs. The tail -ka turns a number into "by the tens, by the hundreds": hamarka — in tens, ehunka lagun — hundreds of people, milaka — thousands.
What does it look like in a Basque example sentence?
“Berrogei bat lagun etorri dira kontzertura” — Some forty people came to the concert. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.