Urdu Numbers 1 to 10 and 1 to 100: Script, Numerals and Sounds

Urdu numbers 1 to 10

Pronunciation notes for the ones English speakers get wrong:

• aik (1) is a single syllable, "ake" as in "bake" without the b. You will also hear and see "ek"; both are correct, and aik is the more common Urdu spelling in romanization.
• paanch (5) ends in a nasal vowel followed by "ch"; the n is felt in the nose rather than pronounced with the tongue.
• chhe (6) starts with an aspirated ch, a "ch" with a strong puff of air. Without the aspiration it is a different word. Say "ch" and blow.
• aath (8) has a retroflex t: curl your tongue tip back to touch the roof of the mouth, then release with a puff of air. This is the sound that separates people who have studied Urdu from people who have not.
• nau (9) rhymes with "how".
• das (10) is "duss" with a short, flat vowel, not "dass".

Reading direction. Urdu words are written right to left, but Urdu numerals are written left to right, exactly like Western digits. So ۱۰ is ten, ۲۵ is twenty-five, and ۱۹۹۹ is 1999. In a line of Urdu text, the number sits as a left-to-right island inside right-to-left writing.

The Urdu numerals

Urdu uses the Eastern Arabic-Indic digits, in the Persian style. You will see them on Pakistani banknotes, older shop signs, Urdu newspapers and religious texts. Western digits are also used everywhere, especially on phones and prices, so you can survive without these, but they take five minutes.

The traps: ۰ (zero) is a small dot, not a circle. ۴ (four) and ۶ (six) are the Persian-style shapes and differ from the Arabic ٤ and ٦. ۵ (five) looks like a small heart or upside-down V. ۷ (seven) looks like a V and ۸ (eight) like an upside-down V, which is the pair everyone confuses at first.

Urdu numbers 11 to 20

Eleven to eighteen all end in -rah, a worn-down form of "ten". Nineteen breaks the pattern and introduces the idea that runs through the whole system: unnees means "one less than twenty" (un = minus one, bees = twenty).

The pattern behind Urdu numbers 21 to 99

Urdu numbers are inherited from Sanskrit through Prakrit, and each number from 1 to 99 is technically its own word. But there is structure: every decade has a tens root, each unit has a recognisable prefix fused onto it, and every number ending in 9 is "one less than" the next ten.

Unit prefixes

The tens

Watch saat (7) and saath (60): the only difference is the aspirated retroflex "th" at the end of sixty. It is the single most common listening error, and Urdu speakers will often say "saath, chhe-sifar" (sixty, six-zero) to be clear.

Urdu numbers 21 to 100: the full list

The ڑ in artees, sarsath, arsath and artaalees is a retroflex flap, halfway between an r and a d, made by flicking the tongue tip off the roof of the mouth. The romanization uses "r" for it; native speakers will hear the difference, and you will get it after a few weeks of listening.

Hundreds, thousands, lakh and crore

100 is sau (سو). The hundreds are regular: do sau (200), teen sau (300), paanch sau (500), nau sau (900). For 101 to 199, say sau plus the number: ek sau ek (101), ek sau pachaas (150). In speech, "ek sau" often drops to just "sau".

1,000 is hazaar (ہزار). do hazaar (2,000), das hazaar (10,000), pachaas hazaar (50,000).

Then, as in Hindi and across South Asia, Urdu stops counting in thousands:

• 1,00,000 (one hundred thousand) = ek lakh (لاکھ). A million is das lakh.
• 1,00,00,000 (ten million) = ek crore (کروڑ). A billion is ek arab (ارب), a hundred crore.

Pakistani numbers are written with commas every two digits after the first three: 25,00,000 is "pachchees lakh", 2.5 million. Salaries, house prices and news headlines all use lakh and crore, so learn them before you need them.

Fractions, time and the words that go with numbers

Urdu has dedicated words for common fractions that are used constantly and cannot be avoided:

• aadha (آدھا) = half. Aadha kilo = half a kilo.
• derh (ڈیڑھ) = one and a half. Derh sau = 150. Derh hazaar = 1,500. Derh ghanta = an hour and a half.
• dhaai (ڈھائی) = two and a half. Dhaai sau = 250. Dhaai lakh = 250,000.
• sava (سوا) = a quarter more. Sava sau = 125. Sava do = 2.25.
• paune (پونے) = a quarter less. Paune do sau = 175. Paune teen = 2.75.
• saadhe (ساڑھے) = plus a half, used from three upward. Saadhe teen = 3.5. Saadhe teen sau = 350.

Time

• Kitne baje hain? (کتنے بجے ہیں؟) What time is it?
• Teen baje hain. It's three o'clock.
• Saadhe chaar baje. Half past four. But half past one is derh baje and half past two is dhaai baje.
• Sava paanch. Quarter past five. Paune chhe. Quarter to six.
• Das baj kar bees minute. Twenty past ten.

Age

• Aap ki umr kya hai? (آپ کی عمر کیا ہے؟) How old are you?
• Main pachchees saal ka hoon (male) / ki hoon (female). I'm 25.

Prices

• Yeh kitne ka hai? (یہ کتنے کا ہے؟) How much is this?
• Do sau rupaye. Two hundred rupees.
• Derh hazaar. Fifteen hundred.

Ordinals

Pehla (first), doosra (second), teesra (third), chautha (fourth), paanchvaan (fifth), then number + -vaan: chhata (sixth, irregular), saatvaan, aathvaan, nauvaan, dasvaan. Feminine forms end in -i / -veen: pehli, doosri, paanchveen.

Urdu numbers and Hindi numbers: same or different?

Spoken, they are the same language for counting. Ek, do, teen, chaar, paanch all the way to sau, hazaar, lakh and crore are shared between Urdu and Hindi, with only tiny pronunciation preferences (Urdu speakers say "aik" a little more than "ek", and "nawwe" for ninety where Hindi has "nabbe").

Written, they share nothing. Urdu uses the Perso-Arabic script (ایک، دو، تین) and the Eastern numerals (۱ ۲ ۳); Hindi uses Devanagari (एक, दो, तीन) and its own digits (१ २ ३). A Karachi shopkeeper and a Delhi shopkeeper can haggle in numbers perfectly, and neither can read the other's price tag.

Common mistakes with Urdu numbers

• Confusing saat (7) and saath (60). Listen for the aspirated retroflex ending on sixty.
• Dropping the aspiration in chhe (6) and aath (8). Chhe without the puff of air is "chay" and can be misheard; aath without the retroflex sounds like "aat".
• Reading Urdu numerals right to left. They go left to right, like Western digits.
• Confusing ۷ and ۸. Seven is the V, eight is the upside-down V.
• Saying "das hazaar hazaar" for a million. It is das lakh.
• Reading South Asian commas as Western ones. 10,00,000 is ten lakh, one million.
• Translating "one and a half" word by word. It is derh. Nobody says "ek aur aadha".
• Using saadhe for half past one or two. Derh baje, dhaai baje.
• Giving up because the 21 to 99 words look random. Learn the prefixes (ik, ba, te, chau, pach, chha, sat, at, un) and the tens; the rest follows.

Say them out loud before you need them

Urdu numbers, more than most vocabulary, are a listening-and-speaking skill. When a rickshaw driver in Rawalpindi says "paintees" you have about a second to know it is thirty-five, and there is no way to work it out from parts.

1. Say 1 to 10 out loud ten times with the aspirated chh, the retroflex th and the nasal in paanch.
2. Learn the ten tens as a chant: das, bees, tees, chaalees, pachaas, saath, sattar, assi, nawwe, sau.
3. Take one decade a day, out loud: ikkees, baaees, teees, chaubees, pachchees, chhabbees, sattaaees, atthaaees, untees, tees.
4. Say your own numbers: age with saal, phone number digit by digit, prices with derh, dhaai, sava and paune.
5. Then practise with something that talks back. SPAIKING's AI speaking partner will quote you prices in rupees, ask your age and the time, and make you say "sattaaees" and "chauhattar" back, correcting the missing aspiration and the flat vowels while you speak. That is the fastest way from a table on a screen to a number you can use in a bazaar.