Learn the words for one through ten by making comparisons and inventing images. One is "uno," like the popular game; two is "due" as in duet, and three is "tre," similar enough to the word three. Once you have those down, go on to "quattro" and think of it as a quarter. Five is "cinque," so perhaps you can think of the Mexican holiday Cinco de Mayo, the fifth of May. Six and seven both start with the letter "s" as they do in Italian: "sei" and "sette." Think of eight as a beheaded snowman named "otto," and for "nove" think of a stack of nine novels. And finally, you're up to "dieci," which you can compare to ten years---a decade.
Go around the house pointing out quantities of items from one to ten. For example, point to your eyes in the mirror and say "due," count the drawers in your dresser and say "sei," count the photos on the wall and say "quattro."
Begin adding numbers, but keep practicing one through ten. Eleven through 16 are pretty easy because they all end with "dici" and use a variation of the numbers one through six: undici, dodici, tredici, quattordici, quindici and sedici. Then, 17 through 19 can be learned together as they all begin with "dici" and are followed by a variation of numbers seven through nine: diciassette, diciotto and diciannove.
Once you've got one to nineteen, use the Italian names for numbers frequently, continuing to count everyday things. Also, you might practice counting in sequence. One trick to push your brain into concentration mode is to count backwards from nineteen.
Although 20 presents something new--venti--you'll see it's easy to count after that. Ventidue is 22, ventitre is 23 and so on. Now take a look at the numbers for 30, 40, 50, and so on---and you'll see how they come from the numbers from one to ten: trenta, quarenta, cinquenta, sessanta, settanta, ottanta and noventa.
So now you can do what the introduction asked: 59 is cinquentanove.
Once you've master the numbers one to 100, it's time to check out some online resources. After all, you never know when you just might need to know how to count out millions of euros. See Resources below.
