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Imagine a couple sitting on a couch and one asks the other during Easter "How many Easters are we together?". There is a German wording which goes "Das wievielte Ostern sind wir nun zusammen?" The answer would be "Das ist unser drittes Ostern."

A very "direct" and likely incorrect English translation might be "The howmanieth Easter are we together now?" and the answer could be "It's our third Easter."

Is there a single word which could be used for "wievielte" in English?

As far as I can tell the typical translation is just "How many Easters...". But I'd like to know, if there exists a catchy word which implies an ordinal number as the answer.

Rainer Schwarze
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    http://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/4587/asking-the-position-of-a-person-in-a-sequence is a partial duplicate. This is not something that English handles well. – Nathan Tuggy Dec 31 '15 at 20:33
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    @NathanTuggy Thanks for the hint - that is probably the question which I was hoping to find. Taking one example from the answers and adjusting to the Easter-couple-situation makes me smile: "In the chronological sequence of Easters, which position does this Easter occupy?" – Rainer Schwarze Dec 31 '15 at 21:02

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I'd say the correct question is:

How many Easters have we spent together?

You need to use the present perfect tense to get the number of Easters you have spent togeter.

user2738748
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  • Thanks for the information. Indeed, there's room for improvement with my typical use of tense. – Rainer Schwarze Dec 31 '15 at 21:10
  • In American English, and particularly for a couple (long, shared history), you could get away with, "How many Easters has it been?" or "We've been together for how many Easters?" – mkennedy Dec 31 '15 at 22:01