Counting in Arabic

That's "welcome" in Arabic! It's pronounced "marhaba".

Isn't it gorgeous?

My family and I have recently been learning Arabic, and we've just started to move on to the numbers after we finished all the letters. I decided to write a blog post on writing numbers in Arabic because I personally love this language and I wanted to share a bit with you. Bear with me as I run you through this latest crash course, and perhaps I'll learn you a thing or two.

Right, first off there are some things you should know before I jump into the numbers. Arabic numerals are written left to right, contrary to the way the words are written. (Right to left) Second off: The decimal point in Arabic is a comma, so to my knowledge, there is no way to distinguish hundreds from thousands, thousands from millions, etc except by counting digits.

Zero: This is a tricky one because it looks just like the decimal point in English, and is even written near the bottom of the number. Otherwise it's just a regular dot.

One: this is one of the easiest numbers. It's literally just a line (When you write it out. The pictures I'm putting up are in calligraphic style), and looks exactly like an English one. It's written top to bottom.

Two: This number is easy to remember because it has two points on top. You write it starting on the top-right and moving to the top-left then down to the bottom-left. When I write it, it looks just like a backwards seven.

Three: Same as Arabic two, but with three points on top.

Four: This a hard one to keep straight, because it's a backwards English three. You write it starting at the top, and moving down progressively 

Five: This one is the hardest to remember, in my opinion, because it's written exactly like an English zero.
Cue the following scene frequently in a store.
    Mom: "Kids! What's that Arabic number?" *points to twenty-five on a random sign*
    Us: "twent-tw-nty-en *frusterated grunts* TWENTY FIVE!!"
Either way, it looks like this:

Six: Also hard. It's a backwards Arabic two.

Seven: As another blog we read said, "Everybody loves the seven!" Start on the top-right when you write it.

Get it? It's the two fingered peace gesture thingy! No? Okay.

Eight: Upside-down seven. Once again, start writing it on right side.

Nine: It's literally just an English nine. Sorry guys, all I could find for an image was this miniscule little nine off of a website called "i2Symbol". "St. Takla.org" failed me. Anyway, when you write it, start in the middle of the letter.

٩

Ten: Is just Arabic one, then a zero.

Here's a picture:

You know what? I don't like how they (the people from theimportanceoflanguages.com) spelled the English translation of the sound of the names of the Arabic numbers, so I'm gonna do my own, making changes where necessary. Now I'm a far cry from an expert, and I write this next bit as a fellow learner, so take it for what it's worth.

Zero: siffr (say it kind of quickly)

One: wahhid (same speed here)

Two: eet-nahn (and here)

Three: ta-lah-tah (you know what, just say all the names pretty quick)

Four: arbah

Five: hahm-sah

Six: sittah

Seven: sabah

Eight: tah-mah-neeya

Nine: tis-ah

Ten: ah-shah-rah

So yeah, there's the Arabic numbers! It was a nice review for me, and I hope ya'll have gotten something out of it!

Oh, and one more thing, the dialect of Arabic I have just blogged about is called "Arabic-Indic".
Here's some practice:

These are the Emirate coins called "fills",
except the biggest coin, that is worth one dirham. (100 fills)

Learning Arabic is different than learning English, Latin, or French. There are two things that set Arabic apart from those other three languages I'm learning: the alphabet, and the fact that I get to live in the country I'm learning it in.

You can see why it seemed a daunting task at first, what with a whole new alphabet and words and sounds that are for the most part never found in English. But you can get a lot done in two months. In that seemingly short time space, we've learned all 28 letters, four forms each, of their alphabet, and we've begun on the numerical system. Along the way, we've picked up a few common words here and there like father (ab  اب), hello (marhaba), and gold (thahab  ذهب).

Usually when we congregate at the counter to start the Arabic part of our school schedule, we'll begin with a review of letters or numbers, then move onto whatever new thing we're learning that day. After we've finished that, we'll end with a review of some vocabulary.

I mean, it's not actually that hard, learning a language is basically just a bunch of memorization and practice in my opinion.

So, yeah, there's a post about the Arabic numbers, and what it's like to learn a new language!

Au reviour!😁