Veinte y * vs. Veinti*

Question

Which is more commonly used to say twenty-two?

veinte y dos

or

veintidós

I know for numbers above 30 that the first example is always the case. I am also wondering about 16-19.

Answer 1

The correct form is veinti-. The Real Academia de la Lengua Española (Royal Achademy of Spanish Language), RAE, publishes this and more things on its web page.

A list of numbers, where your answer is, is in:

(numerales cardinales) http://lema.rae.es/dpd/srv/search?id=rqV8h362gD62vc21qB

Which comes from:

(numerales) http://lema.rae.es/dpd/srv/search?id=8I7I4TmGLD6lWITzaL

All about numbers in spanish: http://lema.rae.es/dpd/srv/search?id=QHaq7I8KrD6FQAyXTS

All this information is in the DPD -Diccionario panhispánico de dudas (Panhispanic dictionary of questions). Try to check it whenever you have a question, it's very useful. Also the DRAE dictionary will help you very much.

Answer 2

Veintidós is by far the most common as that matches the pronunciation of (as far as I know) every single Spanish-speaker. It used to be acceptable to say veinte y dos and you'll probably see it still once in a while, but as of the 2002 DPD, they are considered antiquated and recommended to be avoided though not strictly incorrect.¹ It's curious to note that the 22nd DRAE defines veintidós as veinte y dos, but in accordance with the DPD's recommendations, the 23rd DRAE changes that to veinte más dos.

Writing diez y seis in separate words is even more outdated because the diez component is at this point completely destressed.

Also, numbers above 30 may be written as a single word, just make sure you don't omit the -a: treintaicinco, sesentaisiete, noventaiún_/uno/una.

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^{1. I would only recommend it if you're a native and actually pronounce the e in veinte and/or realize two separate fully stressed syllables as in véinte y siéte. These days, most everyone destresses the first syllable (veinte y siéte) and raises the e (veinti ̮y siete), both of which are cause for merging into a single word. If you do either, or if you are a non native, you should only ever consider using the single word.}

Answer 3

veintidós (22) is correct, veinte y dos is not. It is written in a single word (always) from dieciséis to veintinueve.

http://www.donquijote.org/spanishlanguage/spanish-numbers/