Numbers, measurements and quantities
Zahlen, Maße und Mengen
Read prices and say how much you need, how far a route is and how heavy a parcel is.
Read the number and its unit together: 500 Gramm, einen Liter, drei Kilometer. Common labels include kg, g, l, ml, cm and km. A German price uses a decimal comma: 2,49 € is two euros and forty-nine cents. Say the price as zwei Euro neunundvierzig. Read 500 Gramm as fünfhundert Gramm. The singular unit forms in these measurement expressions are German usage; do not copy English plural endings.
Das kostet 2,49 Euro.
That costs €2.49.
Ich brauche 500 Gramm.
I need 500 grams.
Die Flasche hat einen Liter.
The bottle holds one litre.
Der Weg ist drei Kilometer lang.
The route is three kilometres long.
Das Paket wiegt fünf Kilo.
The parcel weighs five kilos.
Ich nehme zwei Stück.
I will take two.
Start by finding the unit. g is Gramm and kg is Kilogramm; l is Liter and ml is Milliliter; cm is Zentimeter and km is Kilometer. Then read the number with it. Do not treat a price comma as a thousands separator.
At a shop, Ich brauche 500 Gramm tells the seller the weight you need. Ich nehme zwei Stück gives the number of items instead. When sending a parcel, use wiegt to state its weight.
Ich takes brauche, not brauchst. A price of 2,49 Euro is not 249 Euro. Keep the digits and unit together when checking what an amount means.
Price: kostet. Need: brauche. Weight: wiegt. Distance: ist … lang. Look for the unit before choosing the meaning.
Read a price, ask for a weight and say how many items you will take. Use the lesson’s sentence patterns and quantities you can already say.