Counting in Tibetan: The Logic Explained

The Foundation: Numbers 0-10

Let’s start by learning fourteen vocabulary words expressing the core numbers:

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”

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:

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.

Important: The word དང་ must always be used if the second digit is zero, for example:

• 108 ༡༠༨ = བརྒྱ་དང་བརྒྱད་ [gya dang gyé]

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 Tri 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].

Even Larger Numbers

Common Questions