Lesson 1 | Vocab: Numbers
[2] Ordinal Numbers (1st, 2nd, 3rd…)
Unlike cardinal numbers, ordinals are pretty simple grammatically speaking: masculine ordinal numbers look masculine, and feminine ordinal numbers look feminine. And we need only to learn numbers 1-10, since after this cardinal numbers are used even if the meaning is ordinal.
You will recognize the Hebrew word for “first” from the vocab for Hebrew I. The others you haven’t learned, but they are very similar in form to their cardinal forms.
ordinal numbers 1-10
masculine & feminine
| רִאשׁוֹן | רִאשֹׁנָה | 1st | |
| שֵׁנִי | שֵׁנִית | 2nd | |
| שְׁלִישִׁי | שְׁלִישִׁית | 3rd | |
| רְבִיעִי | רְבִיעִית | 4th | |
| חֲמִישִׁי | חֲמִישִׁית | 5th | |
| שִׁשִּׁי | שִׁשִּׁית | 6th | |
| שְׁבִיעִי | שְׁבִיעִית | 7th | |
| שְׁמִינִי | שְׁמִינִית | 8th | |
| תְּשִׁיעִי | תְּשִׁיעִית | 9th | |
| עֲשִׂירִי | עֲשִׂירִית | 10th |
You may have noticed that we did not review cardinal or ordinal numbers in the songs we’ve learned. This is because there aren’t any! Numbers are far more common in the narratives of the Bible. So let’s turn now to a narrative and see a good “number” of examples.