Learning how to count in Russian is a fundamental step to speaking the language.

Numbers are an essential part of everyday communication.

You’ll use them to buy groceries, tell time, and share your age.

This guide will teach you the basics of Russian counting.

I’ll show you how to count from zero to one million.

You’ll also learn about the gender variations for the numbers one and two.

Numbers from 0 to 10

The easiest place to start your Russian counting journey is with the numbers zero through ten.

These base numbers are the building blocks for all other numbers in the language.

Memorizing these early will make the rest of the numbers much easier to learn.

Here’s an example of how you might use a basic number in a simple sentence.

Numbers from 11 to 19

Counting from eleven to nineteen in Russian follows a very logical pattern.

You simply take the base number and add the suffix -надцать (-nadtsat’) to the end.

This suffix historically means “on ten”, which perfectly describes how the numbers are built.

You’ll notice a few minor spelling changes, like dropping the soft sign (ь) in some words.

Tens, hundreds, and beyond

Once you know your base numbers, forming the tens is quite straightforward.

Most tens are formed by adding -десят (-desyat) to the base number.

However, forty and ninety are unique exceptions that you simply have to memorize.

To create compound numbers like 25 or 83, you just state the ten followed by the single digit.

There’s no need for a joining word like “and” in Russian numbers.

When you move past one hundred, the pattern remains very similar.

Gender rules for one and two

In Russian, nouns have specific genders, and a few of our numbers must match those genders.

The number one (один) changes to match masculine, feminine, neuter, and plural nouns.

The number two (два) also changes, but only has a separate form for feminine nouns.

Numbers from three onward don’t change based on the gender of the noun.

Here are the variations for the number one.

Here are a few sentences demonstrating how the number one changes.

And here are the variations for the number two.

Ordinal numbers in Russian

Ordinal numbers are used to talk about the order or position of things.

Words like first, second, and third are all ordinal numbers.

In Russian, ordinal numbers act exactly like adjectives.

This means their endings change depending on the gender, number, and case of the noun they describe.

Below are the masculine dictionary forms of the first ten ordinal numbers.