Numbers: first, second, third
Numbers such as first, second, third are ordinal numbers. We use them to put things in an order. We most commonly use ordinal numbers as determiners. When we use ordinal numbers as determiners (before nouns), we commonly use other determiners such as articles (a/an, the) and possessives (my, your) in front of them:
- This was the fifth science exam that he had failed.
- It’s her twenty-first birthday and she’s spending it with friends in Malaysia.
We also use ordinal numbers as nouns:
- All three singers in the competition were excellent but I’m voting for the third.
Numbers: one, two, three
Numbers such as one, five, eleven, two hundred are cardinal numbers. We most commonly use cardinal numbers as determiners (before nouns). When we use them in this way, we can use other determiners such as articles (a/an, the) and possessives (my, your) in front of them. We can use cardinal numbers + of before determiners (one of my friends):
- She loves animals and has two dogs, three cats and one rabbit.
- My two best friends are Amy and Louise.
- Three of his colleagues were sacked yesterday. (sacked = lost their jobs)
Large numbers
We normally say a hundred, a thousand, a million.
We only say one hundred, one thousand and one million when we want to emphasise the number:
- What would you do if you won a million euros? (preferred to one million euros)
- The city is about a hundred kilometres from the capital.
Numbers such as 100, 200, 1,000, etc. do not take a plural -s when we use them as determiners:
- There were about two hundred people at the meeting.
- Not:
There were about two hundreds people …
However, we use the plural forms hundreds, thousands, millions + of + noun to refer to large, non-specific numbers:
- It’s happened hundreds of times.
- Millions of people live in poverty.