Grammatica - loco

14
Numerals
348
14.1.2.2
Honderd, duizend and miljoen take an -en ending when they mean
‘hundreds/thousands/millions of’:
Duizenden mensen gingen naar het strand.
Thousands of people went to the beach.
14.1.2.3
Met ons/z’n tweeën, drieën, vieren, vijven, zessen etc. Such expressions
are very common and mean ‘two of us/them’ etc. Note that expressions
with ons, which is less common than z’n, must have a wij as the subject
of the sentence whereas those with z’n (never zijn) can have either wij or
zij as the subject:
We gingen met ons/z’n vieren naar de bioscoop.
Four of us went to the movies.
Zij hebben het met z’n tienen gedaan. (also possible is met
hun tienen)
Ten of them did it/There were ten of them who did it.
Theoretically any numeral can bear this ending (e.g. met z’n vijfenvijftigen
‘fifty-five of them’) but it is only common with lower numerals. It is in
fact the only way the Dutch have of expressing ‘There were five of us/them’,
i.e. We waren met ons/z’n vijven, Zij waren met z’n vijven. In these idiomatic
numeric expressions z’n is never written zijn.
14.1.2.4
A more intimate and colloquial form of the above is met z’n tweetjes, drietjes
etc. Also note the expression in z’n/d’r eentje ‘on his/her own’. The -en
ending is also found in expressions such as een van ons tweeën ‘one of
the two of us’ and in in tweeën/drieën/vieren/vijven/zessen snijden ‘to cut
in(to) two/three/four/five/six’. These forms are also used in expressions of
time (see 14.8).
14.1.2.5
Another derivative is tweeling, drieling, vierling etc. for ‘twins’, ‘triplets’,
‘quadruplets’ etc. These words take a singular verb: