The Foundation: 1 Through 10 (Get This Right)
This is it. Your entire number universe in Tibetan is built from these ten blocks. Spend time here. Say them out loud until they feel natural in your mouth.
| Number | Tibetan |
|---|---|
| 1 | གཅིག |
| 2 | གཉིས |
| 3 | གསུམ |
| 4 | བཞི |
| 5 | ལྔ |
| 6 | དྲུག |
| 7 | བདུན |
| 8 | བརྒྱད |
| 9 | དགུ |
| 10 | བཅུ |
Pronunciation Focus: The tricky ones are གཉིས and ལྔ. For the first, smile and say "nyee" with your tongue at the roof of your mouth. For the second, hum an "ng" sound (like at the end of "sing") and then add "a." It comes from the nose.
Master these. Everything else is just stacking.
The First Leap: 11 Through 19
Here's the first rule: For 11-19, you just say "Ten-and-[Digit]."
So the structure is simple: བཅུ (10) + the single digit.
| Number | Tibetan |
|---|---|
| 11 | བཅུ་གཅིག |
| 12 | བཅུ་གཉིས |
| 15 | བཅུ་ལྔ |
| 18 | བཅུ་བརྒྱད |
See? No new words. Just བཅུ plus the digit. This pattern holds all the way to 19.
The Master Pattern: 20 Through 99
This is the golden rule. Tibetan numbers are perfectly decimal. To make 20, 30, 40… you say "[Digit]-Ten."
| Number | Tibetan |
|---|---|
| 20 | ཉི་ཤུ |
| 30 | སུམ་ཅུ |
| 40 | བཞི་བཅུ |
| 50 | ལྔ་བཅུ |
| 90 | དགུ་བཅུ |
Notice 20 and 30 are slightly irregular—they're shortened forms. Just accept these two as special cases. From 40 onward, it's perfectly regular: digit + བཅུ.
Now, for the numbers in between, like 21, 35, or 48? You stick them together.
Formula: [Tens] + [Ones]
- 21 = 20 + 1 = ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཅིག
- 35 = 30 + 5 = སུམ་ཅུ་སོ་ལྔ
That little word རྩ or སོ means "and" for connecting tens and ones.
Building Big: Hundreds and Thousands
The logic keeps going. The word for hundred is བརྒྱ. For thousand, it's སྟོང or ཆིག་སྟོང.
Hundreds: You say "[Digit]-Hundred."
- 100 = བརྒྱ
- 200 = ཉིས་བརྒྱ
- 300 = སུམ་བརྒྱ
- 400 = བཞི་བརྒྱ
Thousands: You say "[Digit]-Thousand."
- 1,000 = ཆིག་སྟོང (or just སྟོང)
- 2,000 = ཉིས་སྟོང
- 5,000 = ལྔ་སྟོང
Build a big number: 367
Break it down: 300 + 60 + 7.
In Tibetan: སུམ་བརྒྱ (300) + དྲུག་ཅུ (60) + བདུན (7).
You connect them: སུམ་བརྒྱ་དྲུག་ཅུ་རྩ་བདུན.
See the architecture? It's always biggest to smallest, with connecting words between.
Real Tibetan: How Numbers Actually Sound
In quick speech, things get shortened. People don't always say every syllable perfectly.
Listen for the rhythm, not just each syllable. The first time you hear a Tibetan rattle off a phone number, it will sound like one long word. Then you'll start to pick out the familiar བཅུ, བརྒྱ, and སྟོང patterns.
Your First Number Conversations
Let's use these now.
Asking a price:
གོང་ག་ཚོད་རེད།
How much is the price?
Giving your age:
ང་ལོ་སུམ་ཅུ་སོ་ལྔ་ཡོད།
I am 35 years old.
Sharing a phone number:
ངའི་ཁ་པར་ཨང་གྲངས་ ༩༨༧ ༦༥༤ ༣༢༡ རེད།
My phone number is 987 654 321.
Drills That Don't Feel Like Drills
Drill 1: The Price is Right
Look at price tags around your house. Say the number in Tibetan. "This costs ལྔ་བརྒྱ." Do it until you don't have to think.
Drill 2: Count Your Steps
For one day, count your steps in Tibetan. Just to twenty, then start over. It forces speed and automaticity.
Drill 3: Backwards from 50
Count backwards from 50 to 1 in Tibetan. This breaks you out of rote sequence and makes you actually construct each number.
Questions You Actually Need Answered
Zero is ཀླད་ཀོར.
That's ordinal numbers. Add པ after the number. "First" is དང་པོ. "Second" is གཉིས་པ. That's a lesson for another day.
Yes, Tibetan has its own numerals (༡ ༢ ༣ ༤ ༥ ༦ ༧ ༨ ༩ ༠). You'll see them everywhere on shop signs, calendars, and menus.
Find a Tibetan news clip or song online. Just listen for any numbers. Write them down. Check if you're right.
Often just བརྒྱ. The "one" is implied.