Thai numbers: how to count from 1 to a million

Thai numbers 1 to 10 are: neung, song, sam, si, ha, hok, jet, paet, kao, sip. Counting past ten just combines these — sip et is 11, sip song is 12 — with two irregulars worth learning early: twenty is yee sip, and a number ending in one uses et instead of neung.

Thai numbers 1 to 10

Number	Thai	Romanized
1	หนึ่ง	neung
2	สอง	song
3	สาม	sam
4	สี่	si
5	ห้า	ha
6	หก	hok
7	เจ็ด	jet
8	แปด	paet
9	เก้า	kao
10	สิบ	sip

These ten words are the whole foundation — how to count in Thai past ten is mostly a matter of combining them, not learning new vocabulary. If numbers are the first stop on your Thai phrase list, the basic Thai phrases guide rounds out greetings, food, and transport words that come up just as often.

Counting from 11 to 99

Eleven through nineteen are sip (ten) plus the digit: sip et (11), sip song (12), sip sam (13), and so on through sip kao (19). Notice that 11 breaks the pattern — it's sip et, not sip neung. Et only shows up in this one spot, as the final digit of a compound number ending in one.

Twenty is the other irregular one: yee sip (ยี่สิบ), not song sip. From there the tens are regular again — sam sip (30), si sip (40), ha sip (50), hok sip (60), jet sip (70), paet sip (80), kao sip (90) — each just the digit plus sip. Two-digit numbers combine a ten and a digit the way English does: yee sip et is 21 (not yee sip neung — the et rule applies here too), sam sip song is 32, and so on.

Hundreds, thousands, and beyond

Roi (ร้อย) is hundred, phan (พัน) is thousand, and Thai then splits from English: meun (หมื่น) is ten thousand and saen (แสน) is a hundred thousand — both get their own word rather than being said as "ten thousand" or "one hundred thousand" built from smaller pieces. Laan (ล้าน) is million. So 100 is roi (or neung roi to be explicit), 1,000 is phan, 10,000 is meun, and 100,000 is saen. This base-10,000 pattern shows up across several Southeast and East Asian languages and is one of the more common stumbling blocks for English speakers doing quick mental math with Thai prices.

Where you'll actually use numbers

Prices come up constantly — street food stalls, markets, and taxis without a working meter all require you to understand a number fast. Thao rai (เท่าไหร่, how much) gets you the price; the seller's answer is where these words earn their keep.

Phone numbers are read digit by digit rather than grouped, so a Thai person dictating their number will say each digit individually — song, hok, si, and so on — rather than saying "sixty-four" as one unit. Room numbers, bus numbers, and floor numbers work the same way: read as individual digits, not as a whole number, which is actually easier for a beginner than it sounds.

Counting objects: the classifier that trips people up

Thai puts a classifier word after the number when you're counting things, and the whole phrase comes after the noun rather than before it — the reverse of English word order. "Two dogs" isn't song ma (two dog); it's ma song tua (หมาสองตัว) — dog, two, [animal classifier]. Tua is the classifier for animals; other categories get their own classifier word. It's a genuine extra step, but for basic travel purposes you can usually get away with just the number and skip the classifier — you'll be understood, just sounding slightly less polished.

Thai numerals vs. the numbers you'll actually see

Thai has its own numeral script — ๐ ๑ ๒ ๓ ๔ ๕ ๖ ๗ ๘ ๙ for 0 through 9 — but everyday Thailand runs on ordinary Arabic numerals. Menus, price tags, road signs, and ATMs all use the numbers you already know how to read. The Thai numeral script mostly turns up in more formal or traditional contexts: it's printed on Thai banknotes alongside the Arabic numeral, and you'll occasionally spot it on temple donation boards or older official documents. Learning to read it isn't necessary for a trip — you'll get through the country entirely on the numerals you already use every day.

Hearing the tones on hok, ha, and si spoken correctly matters more than it looks on paper — a wrong tone on a price can genuinely be misheard as a different number. Thai Phrasebook, an offline Thai phrasebook app with 700+ real-world phrases across 16 categories, plays each number as native audio at full and slow speed, with readable phonetics alongside the Thai script.

FAQ

How do you count to 10 in Thai?

Neung, song, sam, si, ha, hok, jet, paet, kao, sip — one through ten. All ten combine directly to build every other number, so this is the only vocabulary you need to memorize before the pattern takes over.

Why is 20 yee sip and not song sip?

It's simply an irregular form — Thai numbers are almost entirely regular and predictable, but twenty is the one exception worth memorizing on its own rather than assuming the pattern.

Do I need to learn Thai numerals (๑๒๓)?

No. Daily life in Thailand — prices, signs, menus, phone numbers — runs on ordinary Arabic numerals. Thai numerals appear mostly on banknotes and in formal or traditional settings, so skipping them costs a traveler nothing practical.

Is it rude to skip the classifier when counting things in Thai?

No — leaving it off is common among learners and gets you understood without offending anyone. It just marks you as a beginner rather than someone comfortable in the language, which for most travelers is a fine trade-off.