Hundreds and order: dvisti, piatsot, siomyi
Hundreds come in two shapes, and the first one is the oddball. Dvisti is the only hundred-word without sto inside — a fossil of an old dual form. After it the row straightens out: trysta, chotyrysta, and from five on piatsot, shistsot, simsot, visimsot, dev'iatsot. For example: “У залі двісті пʼятдесят місць” — The hall has two hundred and fifty seats. A rule from the Ukrainian course: worked out on examples, not…
How it works
Hundreds come in two shapes, and the first one is the oddball. Dvisti is the only hundred-word without sto inside — a fossil of an old dual form. After it the row straightens out: trysta, chotyrysta, and from five on piatsot, shistsot, simsot, visimsot, dev'iatsot.
Spelling patrol: no soft sign inside piatsot, whatever your ear suggests. But the apostrophe after p and v is required: piatsot, dev'iatsot.
Ordinals grow from cardinals, and four of them swap stems on the way. Try gives tretii, chotyry gives chetvertii, sim gives siomyi, visim gives vosmyi. The rest behave: piatyi, shostyi, deviatyi, desiatyi.
They decline like ordinary adjectives: na chetvertomu poversi, u siomomu riadu, z desiatoi hodyny. And counting stays on its two rails. Dva, try, chotyry take the plural naming form (try dni); from piat the of form begins (piat dniv).
Table
| the number | the hundred | the ordinal |
|---|---|---|
| dva | dvisti | druhyi |
| chotyry | chotyrysta | chetvertii |
| sim | simsot | siomyi |
| visim | visimsot | vosmyi |
By example
- У залі двісті пʼятдесят місцьThe hall has two hundred and fifty seats
- Ми живемо на сьомому поверсіWe live on the seventh floor
- Квиток коштує чотириста гривеньA ticket costs four hundred hryvnias
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
Why piatsot has no soft sign in Ukrainian?
Hundreds come in two shapes, and the first one is the oddball. Dvisti is the only hundred-word without sto inside — a fossil of an old dual form. After it the row straightens out: trysta, chotyrysta, and from five on piatsot, shistsot, simsot, visimsot, dev'iatsot.
What does it look like in an example sentence Ukrainian?
“У залі двісті пʼятдесят місць” — The hall has two hundred and fifty seats. A rule is easier to test on sentences like this than to memorize as a wording: what surfaces in conversation is the sentence.