Speak Thai | Numbers and Counting Words

Thai Numbers, Thai Script and Phonetic

Being able to speak and understand numbers in Thai is an essential skill for any traveller in Thailand.

 

Using these charts, arbitrary numbers in Thai can be constructed much as they are inEnglish. However, please note the following:

·        Numbers ending in one between eleven and ninety-one use the word เอ็ด / èt / instead of หนึ่ง / nùng / (one, 1) as in the following:

หนึ่ง	nùng	one, 1
สิบเอ็ด	sìp èt	eleven, 11
สามสิบเอ็ด	sǎamsìp èt	thirty-one, 31
ร้อยหนึ่ง	rórynùng	one hundred one, 101

·        Numbers between twelve and nineteen are not special as they are in English. They are considered “ten-two,” “ten-three,” etc.

·        If a rule in English is to add -ty to a digit to obtain the tens series, then twenty, thirty, and fifty are exceptions. In Thai, the only special word is ยี่สิบ / yîi sìp / (twenty, 20).

·        Ordinals are formed by prefixing a number with the word ที่ / tîi / as in the following examples:

ที่หนึ่ง	tîi nùng	first
ที่สอง	tîi sǒong	second
ที่สิบเอ็ด	tîi sìp èt	eleventh

·        Note that the words Ten-thousand and hundred-thousand are not compounds as they are in English‚there are unique Thai words for these shown in the chart above.

·        The word หนึ่ง /nùng / (one, 1) can be omitted if it occurs at the beginning of any number (other than one, of course).