Have you noticed that unlike Spanish, where they have proper names for the days of the week like lunes, martes, miercoles, jueves, viernes, sabado and domingo, in Portuguese it seems like they are counting the days instead.

Take for example Monday which is segunda-feira. It literally means second day doesn't it? Interesting right?

In any case, learning how to count by ordinals is useful, especially when someone is asking you in Portuguese which place Fernando Alonso got in last year's Formula One Grand Prix.

From the days of the week we already know how to order from second to sixth, but here's the rest of them:

 
1st
primiero
2nd
segundo
3rd
terceiro
4th
quarto
5th
quinto
6th
sexto
7th
setimo
8th
oitavo
9th
nono
10th
décimo
11th
undécimo/décimo primeiro
12th
duo décimo/décimo segundo
13th
décimo terceiro
14th
décimo quarto
15th
décimo quinto
16th
décimo sexto
17th
décimo sétimo
18th
décimo oitavo
19th
décimo nono
20th vigésimo
21st
vigésimo primeiro
30th
trigésimo
40th
quadragésimo
50th
quinquagésimo
60th
sexagésimo
70th
septuagésimo
80th
octogésimo
90th
nonagésimo
100th
centésimo
200th
ducentésimo
300th
tricentésimo
400th
quadregentésimo
500th
quingentésimo
600th
seiscentésimo
700th
septigentésimo
800th
octigentésimo
900th
nongentésimo
1000th
milésimo
10000th
dez milésimos
100000th
cem milésimos
1000000th
milionésimo
1000000000th
bilionésimo

Did you notice that after the 10th you only need to add the word décimo? That makes it easier to remember. Can you find any other pattern?

Patterns are like rules when learning a language. It will help us to remember easily how words are formed or in this case how the ordinals are formed.