The Foundation: Numbers 0-10
Let's start by learning fourteen vocabulary words expressing the core numbers:
| Number | Tibetan Numeral | Tibetan Script | Phonetics |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | ༠ | ཀླད་ཀོར། | [lé kor] |
| 1 | ༡ | གཅིག | [chik] |
| 2 | ༢ | གཉིས། | [nyi] |
| 3 | ༣ | གསུམ། | [sum] |
| 4 | ༤ | བཞི། | [zhi] |
| 5 | ༥ | ལྔ། | [nga] |
| 6 | ༦ | དྲུག | [druk] |
| 7 | ༧ | བདུན། | [dün] |
| 8 | ༨ | བརྒྱད། | [gyé] |
| 9 | ༩ | དགུ། | [gu] |
| 10 | ༡༠ | བཅུ། | [chu] |
| 20 | ༢༠ | ཉི་ཤུ། | [nyi-shu] |
| 100 | ༡༠༠ | བརྒྱ། | [gya] or བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ། [gya-tham-pa] |
| 1000 | ༡༠༠༠ | ཆིག་སྟོང་། | [chik-tong] or སྟོང་ཕྲག་གཅིག [tong-trak-chik] |
Building 11-19
Numbers from 11 to 19 are built simply by adding a number to the word "ten" བཅུ [chu]. For example:
- 11 ༡༡ = བཅུ་གཅིག [chu-chik], literally "ten-one"
- 12 ༡༢ = བཅུ་གཉིས [chu-nyi], "ten-two"
Pronunciation Notes:
- Number 15 ༡༥: Unusually spelled and pronounced as བཅོ་ལྔ་ [cho-nga] (not the expected [chu-nga])
- Numbers 13, 14, 17, 18, 19: The prefix of the second syllable is pronounced:
- 13 ༡༣ = [chuk-sum]
- 14 ༡༤ = [chup-shi]
- 17 ༡༧ = [chup-tün]
- 18 ༡༨ = [chup-gye]
- 19 ༡༩ = [chup-gu]
The Connecting Syllables: 20-99
The following numbers follow the same logic, but each dozen uses its unique connecting syllable. For the twenties, it is རྩ་ [tsa].
So number 21 ༢༡ will be pronounced as ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཅིག [nyi-shu-tsa-chik], literally "twenty-tsa-one".
And 28 ༢༨? It's ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་བརྒྱད་ [nyi-shu-tsap-gye].
Memorize these seven connecting syllables for numbers from 31 to 99:
| Decade | Connecting Syllable | Example |
|---|---|---|
| 20s | རྩ་ [tsa] | 21 = ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཅིག [nyi-shu-tsa-chik] |
| 30s | སོ་ [so] | 31 = སུམ་ཅུ་སོ་གཅིག [sum-chu-so-chik] |
| 40s | ཞེ་ [zhe] | 41 = ཞི་བཅུ་ཞེ་གཅིག [zhip-chu-zhe-chik] |
| 50s | ང་ [nga] | 51 = ལྔ་བཅུ་ང་གཅིག [ngap-chu-nga-chik] |
| 60s | རེ་ [re] | 61 = དྲུག་ཅུ་རེ་གཅིག [druk-chu-re-chik] |
| 70s | དོན་ [dön] | 71 = བདུན་ཅུ་དོན་གཅིག [dün-chu-dön-chik] |
| 80s | གྱ་ [gya] | 81 = བརྒྱད་ཅུ་གྱ་གཅིག [gya-chu-gya-chik] |
| 90s | གོ་ [go] | 91 = དགུ་བཅུ་གོ་གཅིག [gup-chu-go-chik] |
Memory Tip:
The sound of each connecting syllable matches the first sound of the decade's number! For example, "three" གསུམ་ starts with [s], so the connecting syllable is སོ་ [so]. This works for all except རེ་ [re] in the sixties.
Exception for 55:
Number 55 has a special form: ལྔ་བཅུ་ངེ་ལྔ།
Pronunciation note: In words 40, 50, and 90, the suffix of the second syllable is also pronounced:
- 40 = བཞི་བཅུ་ [ship-chu]
- 50 = ལྔ་བཅུ་ [ngap-chu]
- 90 = དགུ་བཅུ་ [gup-chu]
Now you can count to 99! Check yourself:
- 98 ༩༨ = དགུ་བཅུ་གོ་བརྒྱད། [gup-chu go-gyé]
- 99 ༩༩ = དགུ་བཅུ་གོ་དགུ། [gup-chu go-gu]
Three-Digit Numbers
To build three-digit numbers, first pronounce how many hundreds there are, add དང་ [dang] after it, and continue with the two-digit number.
Example: 888
Say "eight hundred" (བརྒྱད་བརྒྱ་), then དང་ [dang], then "eighty-eight" (བརྒྱད་ཅུ་གྱ་བརྒྱད།).
Result: བརྒྱད་བརྒྱ་དང་བརྒྱད་ཅུ་གྱ་བརྒྱད། [gyé-gya dang gyé-chu-gya-gyé]
The word དང་ ("and") may often be omitted: བརྒྱད་བརྒྱ་བརྒྱད་ཅུ་གྱ་བརྒྱད།
Important: The word དང་ must always be used if the second digit is zero, for example:
- 108 ༡༠༨ = བརྒྱ་དང་བརྒྱད་ [gya dang gyé]
Try it: 364
སུམ་བརྒྱ་དྲུག་ཅུ་རེ་བཞི་ [sum-gya druk-chu ré-zhi]
Literally: "three hundred sixty-four"
The Word ཐམ་པ་
The word ཐམ་པ་ [tham-pa] may sometimes follow round tens and hundreds:
- 10 = བཅུ་ཐམ་པ་ [chu tham-pa]
- 50 = ལྔ་བཅུ་ཐམ་པ་ [ngap-chu tham-pa]
- 100 = བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ་ [gya tham-pa]
Thousands and Beyond
Four-digit numbers follow the same logic—first come the thousands, then everything else:
- 2,333 ༢༣༣༣ = ཉིས་སྟོང་གསུམ་བརྒྱ་སུམ་བཅུ་སོ་གསུམ། [nyi-tong sum-gya sum-chu-so-sum]
The Particle ཕྲག་
The word ཐམ་པ་ cannot follow thousands to denote round thousands. Instead, we use the particle ཕྲག་ [trak] meaning "set." This is more universal and can also follow numbers starting from one hundred:
- 100 = བརྒྱ་ཕྲག་གཅིག [gya-trak-chik] (instead of བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ་)
- 500 = བརྒྱ་ཕྲག་ལྔ་ [gya-trak-nga]
- 1,000 = སྟོང་ཕྲག་གཅིག [tong-trak-chik] (instead of གཅིག་སྟོང་)
- 2,000 = སྟོང་ཕྲག་གཉིས་ or གཉིས་སྟོང་། (both are correct)
The particle ཕྲག་ can even be added to any four-digit number, not just round ones:
- 330 = བརྒྱ་ཕྲག་གསུམ་དང་གསུམ་བཅུ། [gya-trak-sum dang sum-chu]
Large Numbers: The ཁྲི System
Now we arrive at a very important word: ཁྲི། [tri] meaning 10,000. This is crucial because Tibetan speakers often express numbers from 10,000 to millions in terms of factors of 10,000.
Instead of saying "thirty thousand" (སྟོང་ཕྲག་སུམ་བཅུ།), one would rather say "10,000 × 3" = ཁྲི་གསུམ། [tri-sum].
Example: 55,555
Literally "10,000 × 5 and five thousand five hundred fifty-five":
ཁྲི་ལྔ་དང་ལྔ་སྟོང་ལྔ་བརྒྱ་ལྔ་བཅུ་ངེ་ལྔ་
[tri nga dang nga-tong nga-gya nga-chu-ngé-nga]
Example: 670,000
This is 10,000 × 67:
ཁྲི་དྲུག་ཅུ་རེ་བདུན། [tri druk-chu-ré-dün]
Not: སྟོང་ཕྲག་དྲུག་བརྒྱ་བདུན་ཅུ།
Even Larger Numbers
| Number | Tibetan | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| 100,000 | ཁྲི་བཅུ། [tri chu] or འབུམ་གཅིག་ [bum chik] | 10,000 × 10 |
| 200,000 | འབུམ་གཉིས་ [bum nyi] or ཁྲི་ཉི་ཤུ་ [tri nyi-shu] | 10,000 × 20 |
| 1,000,000 | ཁྲི་བརྒྱ་ [tri gya] or ས་ཡ་གཅིག [sa-ya chik] | 10,000 × 100 |
| 10,000,000 | ས་ཡ་བཅུ། [sa-ya chu] or བྱེ་བ་གཅིག [jewa chik] | |
| 100,000,000 | དུང་ཕྱུར་གཅིག [dung chur chik] |
Common Questions
This is a helpful memory aid built into the language! The connecting syllable shares its first sound with the decade's name. For example, "three" གསུམ་ starts with [s], and the connecting syllable for the thirties is སོ་ [so]. The only exception is རེ་ [re] for the sixties.
The word དང་ [dang] meaning "and" is optional in most cases. However, it must be used when the second digit is zero (like in 108, 205, etc.). Otherwise, the number would be ambiguous.
ཐམ་པ་ [tham-pa] can follow round tens and hundreds to emphasize "exactly that amount." ཕྲག་ [trak] meaning "set" is more versatile—it can follow hundreds, thousands, and any number. For thousands and above, only ཕྲག་ is used.
This is common in many Asian languages. Using 10,000 as a base makes large numbers easier to express and understand. Instead of counting thousands into the hundreds, you count groups of 10,000. It's similar to how English uses "million" as a convenient unit.