Sources and checking
Updated 8 October 2026
A wrong answer key teaches a class the wrong word, and in Greek a missing accent is a wrong word. So every number on this site comes from one program, and a second program, written separately, checks it.
One engine, one check
Every Greek number shown on these pages, printed on the 1 to 100 chart or set on a worksheet and its key is produced by the site's number engine, for every whole number from 0 to 1,000,000. Nothing is typed in by hand page by page.
A separate checking program re-derives every number from its own tables, which are typed without accents, with the accent placed by code on the letter its lexicon names. It reads the number in a different way from the engine, and compares the two, character for character, for every number from 0 to 1,000,000 in the counting form and from 0 to 999,999 in the masculine and the feminine. It then checks every word the engine can produce, letter by letter:
- each word of two or more syllables carries exactly one accent, on the right letter, and one-syllable words carry none;
- the stress falls on one of the last three syllables;
- the final sigma is ς and only ς;
- every letter is a Greek letter (no Latin o or a that looks the same) and accents are single precomposed characters.
On 8 October 2026 it made 5,009,145 checks with no failures. To prove the check catches what it should, seven faults were planted in the engine one at a time (a missing accent, a Latin o, εκατόν everywhere, neuter thousands, an accent on the wrong letter, a separate combining accent, a σ at the end of a word); the check failed on every one.
The decisions
| Counting forms are neuter | ένα, τρία, τέσσερα, δεκατρία, είκοσι ένα, διακόσια, χίλια. The dictionary’s entry for ένας: when numbers are recited in order the neuter is used. Every chart and worksheet prints these. |
| 21, 31 ... are two words | είκοσι ένα, not εικοσιένα, following the dictionary’s own example. No word for "and" inside a number. |
| εκατό and εκατόν | εκατό alone; εκατόν only in numerals of two or more words from 101 to 199 (dictionary, entry εκατό). So 100,000 is εκατό χιλιάδες. |
| Feminine thousands | From 2,000 the noun χιλιάδες, feminine, and the number before it agrees: τρεις, τέσσερις, δεκατρείς, είκοσι μία, διακόσιες χιλιάδες. One thousand is χίλια. |
| μία for the feminine one | Written μία, the stressed form of the number, rather than μια, which is also the article. μια is accepted on the answer keys. |
| εφτά, οχτώ, εννιά | The spoken forms and their family (δεκαεφτά, δεκαοχτώ, δεκαεννιά, εφτακόσια, οχτακόσια, εννιακόσια), so the set is consistent. The dictionary gives each pair as equals; επτά, οκτώ, εννέα and their compounds are accepted on the keys. |
| δεκαέξι | The dictionary’s first form; δεκάξι is accepted. |
| No gender choice on worksheets | Sheets print the counting forms only. Gender is taught on the gender, time and big-number pages, where it can be explained rather than drawn at random. |
| Monotonic spelling | One accent mark, the tonos, on every word of two or more syllables, as Greek schools have taught since 1982. No breathings or other polytonic marks. |
Sources
- Λεξικό της κοινής νεοελληνικής (Dictionary of Standard Modern Greek), Institute of Modern Greek Studies, Manolis Triantafyllidis Foundation, 1998; online at the Centre for the Greek Language. The entries for each numeral are the authority for spellings, variants, the εκατόν rule and the example sentences quoted on this site.
- David Holton, Peter Mackridge, Irene Philippaki-Warburton and Vassilios Spyropoulos, Greek: A Comprehensive Grammar of the Modern Language, 2nd edition, Routledge, 2012: the numerals, their declension and agreement.
- Amalia Arvaniti, “Standard Modern Greek”, Journal of the International Phonetic Association 29(2), 1999: the sound values behind the pronunciation guide and the IPA.
- Wiktionary, “Appendix:Greek numerals” and the etymologies of individual words, cross-checked against the dictionary.
- For the letter numerals: Wikipedia, “Greek numerals”, and the Unicode Standard's Greek and Coptic block.
The respellings
Greek writes a number as separate words, so the site keeps one hand-checked respelling for each of the 65 words the engine can produce, and builds any number's respelling from them. A test fails if the engine can produce a word with no respelling. The respellings are a guide for English readers; the pronunciation page gives IPA.
Corrections
If you find a form you believe is wrong, write to the publisher through digitalsignet.com and name your source. A correction changes the engine and the check together, and the count above changes with it.