Counting one to ten
Arabic · Early Years · The School
One to ten
واحِد (wāḥid) 1, اِثْنان (ithnān) 2, ثَلاثة (thalātha) 3, أَرْبَعة (arbaʿa) 4, خَمْسة (khamsa) 5, سِتّة (sitta) 6, سَبْعة (sabʿa) 7, ثَمانِية (thamāniya) 8, تِسْعة (tisʿa) 9, عَشَرة (ʿashara) 10. Clap as you count. A rhythm helps a list stick.
The digits look different
Arabic writes its digits as ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩ ١٠. Look at ٥. It looks like our 0. Now look at ٦. It looks like our 7. Those two catch everyone out. You will see these numbers in a mushaf. They mark each ayah. So you can use them straight away.
Count real things
Count your fingers in Arabic. Count the plates on the table. Counting real things is better than saying the list. The number sticks to an amount. It does not just stick to the next word in a chant. Try counting five things a day for a week.
The digits are ٠ ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩. Write 2026 like this: ٢٠٢٦. Now look at which way it runs. It goes LEFT TO RIGHT, just like ours. The biggest place value comes first. The words around it run the other way. Now write your age. Then write your house number. Then count things out loud in Arabic: wāḥid, ithnān, thalātha, arbaʿa, khamsa.
Past ten, the ten comes along
Eleven and twelve keep their own names: أَحَدَ عَشَر (aḥada ʿashar) and اِثْنا عَشَر (ithnā ʿashar). After those you can hear the pattern coming. Say the number you already know. Then say عَشَر (ʿashar), which means ten. So thirteen is ثَلاثةَ عَشَر (thalāthata ʿashar). That is three-ten. English does the very same thing and then hides it. Thirteen IS three and ten. So this is not a new idea. It is a familiar one, said the other way round.