Portuguese numbers 0 to 1000: the full list with audio

To say any number from 0 to 1000 — a price, an address, a phone number, a year — you only need 40 words: everything else is built from them like building blocks. Below is the full set with IPA transcription and audio, plus the assembly rules and a couple of Brazilian surprises, like the digit "six" turning into meia on the phone.

How any number is built

Compound numbers are joined with e ("and") between place values: 21 is vinte e um ("twenty and one"), 35 is trinta e cinco, 123 is cento e vinte e três. Learn the tens and the units and you can count to 99; add the hundreds and you're at 999.

One wrinkle with hundreds: exactly 100 is cem, but the moment anything follows it, the word switches to cento: 101 is cento e um, 150 is cento e cinquenta. The other hundreds (duzentos, trezentos…) don't change. And a thousand is simply mil, with no "one" in front: 1000 is mil, 1984 is mil novecentos e oitenta e quatro.

Gender: um/uma, dois/duas

"One" and "two" agree in gender with what they're counting: um livro (one book — masculine), but uma semana (one week — feminine); dois dias, but duas horas. The same goes for hundreds from 200 up: duzentos reais, but duzentas páginas. From "three" onward gender disappears — três, quatro and everything after stay the same for every noun.

All 40 numbers with audio

Every entry includes an IPA transcription. Listen and repeat out loud — numbers have to be caught by ear as much as spoken, in prices, on buses, and in addresses.

Brazilian surprises

Meia instead of seis. When reading out a phone number or an address, Brazilians say the digit 6 as meia — short for meia dúzia, "half a dozen". The reason is practical: seis and três are easy to mishear over the phone. Hear "nove-meia-quatro" and that's 964.

Comma and period, swapped. The decimal part is set off with a comma, and thousands with a period: R$ 1.500,50 is one thousand five hundred reais and fifty cents. A price like "dez e cinquenta" (10,50) is only easy to catch by ear — one more reason to train numbers with audio, not just text.

How to learn the numbers without mixing them up

1. In blocks, not all at once. Master 0–10 first, then 11–19, then the tens — one block per evening.

2. By ear, not just by eye. You'll hear numbers far more often than read them, and dezesseis and dezessete look similar on the page but sound completely different out loud. Listen to each one and repeat it.

3. Spaced repetition. The trainer schedules the next review from your answer history. Practise recall without hints; a sustainable pace and the time needed vary by learner.

Numbers quickly pull dates along with them — for those you'll need the days of the week and months.