Thai Numbers: The Digits, Counting and Prices
Thai numbers from zero to a million: the ten Thai digits, the two exceptions you need when counting, and how to read a price at a market stall in Thailand.
·Thai Trainer·Reading Thai
Thai has its own digits, ๐ to ๙, and they work exactly like the ones you already use: ten digits, place value, left to right. ๒๕ is 25. To say numbers out loud you need ten words, two exceptions and five words for the big amounts. That is enough to read any price in Thailand.
The Thai digits from ๐ to ๙
Each card shows the digit, its name and the number it stands for. The name of the digit is also the word you count with: ๕ is read , ha, and means five.
There are no new rules for writing them. Zero holds its place just as it does in English, so ๑๐๐ is 100 and ๑๐๕ is 105. Only the shapes change.
The ones people mix up
Two pairs trip up beginners:
- ๑ (1) and ๙ (9). Both start with a small loop. The 9 ends in a long stroke that rises; the 1 stays closed on itself.
- ๔ (4) and ๕ (5). Same body. The 5 has one extra stroke on top, like a small hook added on.
๐ (0), on the other hand, is hard to miss: it is a circle, like ours.
Can you read them?
Before you go on, test yourself on all ten. Each question shows a Thai digit and you pick the number it stands for.
Try it yourself
Answer without scrolling back. The letters below are the ones this article just covered.
Keep going with the full alphabet, audio for every character and quizzes that come back when you are about to forget.
Create a free accountWhere you will see Thai digits
Most numbers on the street are written with the digits you know. Thai digits still turn up in specific places, and they tend to be the ones a traveller cares about:
- Handwritten prices at food stalls and markets.
- Two-tier ticket prices. At some tourist sites the foreigner price is written in Western digits and the cheaper Thai price in Thai digits.
- Banknotes and coins, which carry both.
- Official documents and dates. Thailand counts years in the Buddhist Era, 543 years ahead: 2026 is the year ๒๕๖๙, 2569.
Spaced repetition schedules each letter for the day you need it. Free, no card, no time limit.
Practise this in the appOne to ten
| Number | Thai | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | sun | |
| 1 | neung | |
| 2 | song | |
| 3 | sam | |
| 4 | si | |
| 5 | ha | |
| 6 | hok | |
| 7 | jet | |
| 8 | paet | |
| 9 | kao | |
| 10 | sip |
The romanization leaves out the tones, but every number has one, and you can work it out from the spelling. The guide to Thai tones uses these same ten numbers as its first drill. Tap any Thai word to hear it.
Eleven to ninety-nine: two exceptions
Two-digit numbers are said the way they are written: how many tens, then the word for ten, then the units. 35 is "three ten five": , sam-sip-ha.
There are two exceptions, and neither is hard:
- A final 1 is , et, not . 11 is , sip-et; 21 is , yi-sip-et. It applies to any number above 10 that ends in 1, 101 included: , roi-et.
- A 2 in the tens is , yi, not . 20 is , yi-sip; 25 is , yi-sip-ha. Only in the tens: 200 is back to , song-roi.
| Number | Thai | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | sip-et | |
| 12 | sip-song | |
| 20 | yi-sip | |
| 21 | yi-sip-et | |
| 30 | sam-sip | |
| 45 | si-sip-ha | |
| 99 | kao-sip-kao |
Ten takes no "one" in front: 10 is just , and 12 is .
Hundreds, thousands and millions
Thai has a word for every power of ten up to a million, including two English does not have: ten thousand and a hundred thousand.
| Number | Thai | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | roi | |
| 1,000 | phan | |
| 10,000 | muen | |
| 100,000 | saen | |
| 1,000,000 | lan |
So 50,000 is not "fifty thousand" but "five ten-thousands": , ha-muen. And 300,000 is , sam-saen. This is the part that takes longest to feel natural, because it groups the digits differently from English.
Everything else chains from largest to smallest, with no "and" in between. 350 is , sam-roi-ha-sip. The year 2569 is , song-phan-ha-roi-hok-sip-kao.
Asking for and understanding a price
The currency is the baht, , and it comes after the number: , ha-sip baht, 50 baht. To ask the price, point and say , an-ni thao-rai: how much is this?
The answer is usually somewhere between 20 and 500 baht, so the tens and cover most everyday shopping. If you miss it the first time, many vendors will show you the figure on a calculator or their phone.
Counting things: classifiers
When you count objects, Thai does not put the number before the noun. The order is noun, number, then a word for the kind of thing you are counting, the classifier:
- , kafae song kaeo: two coffees, literally "coffee two glass".
- , maeo sam tua: three cats. is for animals.
- , phuean song khon: two friends. is for people.
There are many classifiers, but these three are enough to order at a café and talk about who you are travelling with.
Why 555 means laughing
Five is , ha. So in Thai messages and comments 555 means "hahaha", and the more fives, the bigger the laugh. It is the first Thai number many people learn without noticing.
Thai Trainer teaches all ten Thai digits with recorded audio, alongside the 44 consonants, the vowels and the tone marks. The spaced repetition brings back the ones you keep mixing up, like ๔ and ๕, until you stop mixing them up. That part is free, with no time limit.
