18.2.1 Ordinal numbers change

Since ordinal numbers change in gender and number, let's see how does it look like:
  Example
el primer hombre= the first man
la primera mujer = the first woman / wife
los primeros hombres= the first men
las primeras mujeres= the first women / wives
el segundo libro= the second book
la segunda casa= the second house
los quintos pisos= the fifth floors
los terceros países= the third world countries
los cuartos cursos= the fourth classes
la segunda mujer= the second woman / wife
el segundo hombre= the second man
la cuarta mujer= the fourth woman / wife
de la cuarta mujer= of the fourth woman / wife
a la cuarta mujer= to the fourth woman / wife
por la cuarta mujer= because of the fourth woman / wife
el cuarto hombre= the fourth man


Note that there is a little specialty in
primer (adjectival) <=> primero (substantival) and tercer (adjectival) <=> tercero (substantival)

El primer chorizo que comí. = The first sausage I ate.
El primero que entró, fue Juan. = The first who entered was Juan.

El tercer libro que escribió. = The third book he wrote.
El tercero tenía hambre. = The third (one) was hungry.

The formation of the ordinal numbers is shown in principle with the following little table. A complete overview you'll find in chapter 18.2.2. As you can see a higher ordinal number is formed by creating the ordinal number of every element of this figure.

the hundredth = el centésimo
the twentieth = el vigésimo
the hundred twentieth = el centesimo vigésimo






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