How to Count to 10 in Catalan (Say Them Out Loud)
Counting to 10 in Catalan is easy if you know any Spanish or French, but Catalan is its own language with its own sounds and a couple of surprises. Here are the numbers 1 to 10 with pronunciation hints and clear notes on how they differ from Spanish.
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What's in this guide
The numbers 1 to 10 in Catalan
Catalan is a Romance language spoken in Catalonia, Valencia, the Balearic Islands, and beyond. Here are the numbers with pronunciation hints.
- 1 un / una (oon / OO-nah)
- 2 dos / dues (dos / DOO-uhs)
- 3 tres (tres)
- 4 quatre (KWAH-truh)
- 5 cinc (seenk)
- 6 sis (sees)
- 7 set (set)
- 8 vuit (BWEET)
- 9 nou (now)
- 10 deu (DEH-oo)
Catalan has more vowel sounds than Spanish, and unstressed vowels often relax toward an uh sound, which is why quatre ends in truh rather than tray.
How Catalan differs from Spanish
People sometimes assume Catalan is a dialect of Spanish. It is not; it is a separate language, closer in some ways to French and Occitan. The numbers make the difference clear. Spanish five is cinco, Catalan is cinc, ending in a hard consonant cluster. Spanish eight is ocho, Catalan is vuit, which sounds like bweet.
Catalan also loves final consonants where Spanish adds a vowel, so set (seven) and sis (six) end sharply. And the letter v in vuit is often pronounced close to a b in many regions. If you speak Spanish, expect the numbers to look familiar but sound noticeably different, with clipped endings and richer vowels.
One and two have feminine forms
Like other Romance languages, Catalan gives grammatical gender to nouns, and two of the numbers change to match. One is un before masculine nouns and una before feminine ones. Two is dos before masculine nouns and dues before feminine ones.
The rest of the numbers, three through ten, stay the same regardless of gender, which keeps things simple. For plain counting out loud, most people use the masculine un and dos. Just remember that when you attach these numbers to a specific noun, you match the gender, so two women is dues dones while two men is dos homes. Getting this right early makes your Catalan sound properly native rather than translated from Spanish.
Common mistakes learners make
Spanish speakers especially repeat a few errors.
- Adding a vowel to endings. Catalan cinc, set, and sis end sharply, unlike Spanish cinco or siete.
- Reading vuit as a Spanish word. Eight sounds like bweet, with the v close to b in many areas.
- Fully pronouncing unstressed vowels. They relax toward uh, so quatre is KWAH-truh.
- Ignoring the feminine forms. One and two become una and dues with feminine nouns.
Fix these and your Catalan stops sounding like Spanish with an accent.
The fastest progress comes from talking
Practice out loud with an AI coach that listens, corrects your pronunciation, and never makes you feel judged. That is how fluency actually builds.
How to make them stick
The clipped endings and relaxed vowels are habits, and you build habits by speaking, not by reading a list once. Say the numbers out loud and copy native Catalan audio closely.
Count stairs, count coins, say your phone number one digit at a time. The best drill is trading numbers with a real speaker or an AI speaking partner that answers back, so you produce the sharp endings and the uh vowels under a little pressure rather than only recognizing them. Short spoken sessions beat long silent ones, and if you already know some Spanish, the Catalan versions lock in within a day or two.
Counting past 10
Catalan teens follow a clear pattern. Eleven is onze, twelve is dotze, thirteen is tretze, up through setze for sixteen, then disset, divuit, and dinou for seventeen to nineteen. Twenty is vint, and the tens build from there with i (and) linking to the digit, as in vint-i-un for twenty-one.
So the ten words you just learned are the foundation for the whole range up to ninety-nine. If you know Spanish or French numbers, you will spot the family resemblance immediately, which makes Catalan one of the faster languages to reach practical counting in for prices, times, and dates.
Turn what you just read into real reps
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Frequently asked questions
Is Catalan just a dialect of Spanish?
No. Catalan is a separate Romance language with its own grammar and sounds, in some ways closer to French and Occitan than to Spanish.
Which Catalan numbers change with gender?
One and two. One is un or una and two is dos or dues, depending on whether the noun is masculine or feminine. The rest stay the same.
Why do Catalan numbers end in consonants?
Catalan keeps sharp final consonants where Spanish often adds a vowel, so five is cinc rather than cinco and seven is set rather than siete.
How do you count past ten in Catalan?
The teens have their own words like onze for eleven and dotze for twelve, and from twenty the tens link to digits with i, as in vint-i-un for twenty-one.