Example sentences
tā他kǎo考le了dì第yī一。
He got first place.
dì第yī一tiān天shàng上bān班zěn怎me么yàng样？
How was your first day at work?
About this word
第 is a prefix that turns any number into an ordinal, and 一 is "one", so 第一 is "the first". The prefix never stands alone and never takes 个 by itself, and you build the rest the same way: 第二, 第三, 第一百. With a noun after it you usually need 个 (第一个人), though set time phrases stand bare: 第一次, 第一天. Away from counting, 第一 doubles as "foremost", as in 安全第一, "safety first".
The story behind the character
第
第 is 竹 (bamboo) on top and 弟 underneath giving the sound. Bamboo slips were the paper of the day, and officials wrote out ranks and order on them, so 第 came to mean sequence. 第一 is "order one," the first in line. Little brothers have nothing to do with it, even though 弟 is sitting right there doing sound duty.
一
One horizontal stroke, the simplest character there is. Yet Xu Shen loaded it with the heaviest meaning: 一, 惟初太始: "one, the very beginning, where the Way is set and heaven and earth divide." One stroke, holding up the whole start of the universe. That might be the most weight a single line has ever carried.
Related words
Practise the numbers with audio →Every number from 1 to 100, each digit tap-to-hear, plus the tone changes that trip people up.