Arabic numbers 1 to 10
The ten words below are the base of every Arabic number. Learn them with their sound and their shape, and the teens and tens on the 1 to 100 page are mostly these words again.
Updated 8 October 2026
The counting forms, 1 to 10
These are the words you say when you count, and the ones that go with a masculine noun. The figure is on the left, the Arabic on the right, read from the right.
With a feminine noun
A noun such as طالبة (a female student) or سيارة (a car) is feminine, and the numbers with it change. One and two agree with the noun as adjectives do; three to ten take the form without ة.
| Figure | Counting form (masculine noun) | Feminine noun | Said |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | واحد | واحدة | wāḥida |
| 2 | اثنان | اثنتان | ithnatān |
| 3 | ثلاثة | ثلاث | thalāth |
| 4 | أربعة | أربع | arbaʿ |
| 5 | خمسة | خمس | khams |
| 6 | ستة | ست | sitt |
| 7 | سبعة | سبع | sabʿ |
| 8 | ثمانية | ثماني | thamānī |
| 9 | تسعة | تسع | tisʿ |
| 10 | عشرة | عشر | ʿashr |
Three to ten examples: خمسة أقلام (five pens, masculine) and خمس سيارات (five cars, feminine). The gender page follows the rule through 11 to 19 and the tens, where it changes again.
Reading the shapes
Arabic letters join, so each word looks like one connected stroke with a few breaks. The breaks come after the six letters that do not join to the letter after them: ا د ذ ر ز و. That is why واحد shows as three pieces (و, ا, حد) and أربعة as three as well (أ, ر, بعة). The ending ة, written like a closed h with two dots, is pronounced as a short a at the end of a word, so ثلاثة is thalātha.
When you can say these ten, try the practice box on counting in Arabic, or print a 1 to 10 worksheet from the printable page.
Questions
How do you count to 10 in Arabic?
واحد، اثنان، ثلاثة، أربعة، خمسة، ستة، سبعة، ثمانية، تسعة، عشرة: wāḥid, ithnān, thalātha, arbaʿa, khamsa, sitta, sabʿa, thamāniya, tisʿa, ʿashara. These are the counting forms, used when you count aloud with nothing named, and they are the forms printed on this site’s chart and worksheets.
Why does the feminine list look shorter?
From 3 to 10 the feminine forms drop the final ة that the counting forms carry, so ثلاثة becomes ثلاث. This looks backwards to a learner, because ة usually marks a feminine word. The rule is that a number from 3 to 10 takes the opposite gender to its noun, so the form with ة goes with masculine nouns. The gender page shows it with nouns.
Is 1 to 10 the same in Egyptian or Levantine Arabic?
Close, with a few sound changes. In Cairo th is usually said t (talāta, talatīn) and two is itnēn; in much of the Levant th becomes t as well and eight is tmēne. Learners of a dialect will recognise the Modern Standard forms here, and written work in school uses them.