Counting 1-10 in Pennsylvania Dutch (Video)

How do you count to ten in Pennsylvania Dutch? In the video below by Virgil Schrock you can hear a variety of speakers doing just that, in different accents.

The video also includes a little bit of 11-20. There is a cute segue about 2/3 through, with a young Amish boy doing his own counting, but not in PA Dutch.

Listen to the end, where you’ll hear the accents on two numbers compared across all the speakers.


I learned from a reader last week that Virgil recently passed away. Virgil would occasionally comment on this website, and we have featured some of his PA Dutch videos here before. Rest in peace.

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    7 Comments

    1. Naomi Wilson

      I’m sorry to hear he passed away. I’ve watched a number of his videos over the last couple years to see how much of the PA Dutch I could understand.

    2. Juanita Cook

      So sorry for the loss of Virgil. Prayers for his family

    3. Margaret

      Cute video! Really enjoyed hearing them count. Also, so sorry to hear about Virgil’s passing. We’ll keep his family in our prayers.

    4. Elva Bontrager

      It would have been interesting to have them continue counting further. For instance, in Pennsylvania Dutch, the count is not twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three, etc, but ‘one and twenty, two and twenty, three and twenty, etc.

      1. RIP Virgil..

        It was very interesting listening to the different accents..

    5. Christina

      So sad to hear that he passed away. I subscribe to his youtube channel.

    6. Linda

      Comparison of pronouncing Pennsylvania Dutch number 9

      I thought this was the same video I had seen before, but I didn’t know Virgil Shrock combined parts of several different videos so we can hear how people use different pronunciations for the numbers 9 and 14.

      For the English words nine, three, time, my, your, and his, in certain areas of the country, folks will pronounce with a long I, the Pennsylvania Dutch words nein, drei, Zeit, mei, dei, and sei, while others will use a short A. If you listen how they say “drei,” you can predict how they will pronounce “nein!”