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 — rhythm makes lists stick.
The digits look different
Arabic writes digits as ١ ٢ ٣ ٤ ٥ ٦ ٧ ٨ ٩ ١٠. Notice ٥ looks like our 0 and ٦ looks like our 7 — those two catch everyone out. You will see these numbers on the pages of a mushaf marking each ayah, so learning them has an immediate use.
Count real things
Count your fingers in Arabic. Count the plates on the table. Counting real objects is better practice than reciting the list, because the number attaches to a quantity instead of 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: ٢٠٢٦ — and note it runs LEFT TO RIGHT like ours, largest place value first, even though the words around it run the other way. Now write your age, then your house number, then count objects aloud 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) — and after those the pattern is one you can hear coming: the number you already know, then عَشَر (ʿashar), which is ten. Thirteen is ثَلاثةَ عَشَر (thalāthata ʿashar), which is literally three-ten. English builds its teens the same way and then hides it: thirteen IS three and ten. So this is not a new idea to learn, only a familiar one said in the other order.