Turkish numbers are entirely regular: learn zero to ten and the nine tens, then assemble anything by putting the larger part first. Twenty-one is yirmi bir. There are no reversals or special teen forms. The one rule to remember is that a noun stays singular after a number — three books is üç kitap, never üç kitaplar.
Published 22 August 2026
Turkish numbers are one of the genuine gifts of the language. They are completely regular, they are built out of ten words plus nine more, and there is not a single irregularity or reversal to trip over. No French quatre-vingt-dix — four-twenties-ten — for ninety. No German habit of saying the units before the tens. You learn the parts once and assemble anything.
Half an hour here and you can count to a million.
| Number | Turkish | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | sıfır | SUH-fuhr |
| 1 | bir | beer |
| 2 | iki | ee-KEE |
| 3 | üç | üch |
| 4 | dört | dört |
| 5 | beş | besh |
| 6 | altı | al-TUH |
| 7 | yedi | ye-DEE |
| 8 | sekiz | se-KEEZ |
| 9 | dokuz | do-KUZ |
| 10 | on | on |
Bir is worth noting twice: it means "one", and it also does the job of "a" in English. Bir çay is both "one tea" and "a tea", which is exactly what you say when ordering.
There is no equivalent of English "eleven" and "twelve", no special forms, and no joining letter. Ten plus the digit, written as two words.
| Number | Turkish | Literally |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | on bir | ten one |
| 12 | on iki | ten two |
| 15 | on beş | ten five |
| 19 | on dokuz | ten nine |
That is the entire teen system. Compare the amount of memorisation English demands for the same range.
These nine words are the only other thing you have to learn. Note that they are not derived from the digits — yirmi is not built from iki — so they need learning individually.
| Number | Turkish | Say it |
|---|---|---|
| 20 | yirmi | yir-MEE |
| 30 | otuz | o-TUZ |
| 40 | kırk | kuhrk |
| 50 | elli | el-LEE |
| 60 | altmış | alt-MUHSH |
| 70 | yetmiş | yet-MISH |
| 80 | seksen | sek-SEN |
| 90 | doksan | dok-SAN |
| 100 | yüz | yüz |
Three of them do echo their digits if you look — altı and altmış, yedi and yetmiş, sekiz and seksen, dokuz and doksan — which makes the sixties through nineties easier to hold than they first appear.
Ten and the digit, exactly as with the teens. Big number first, small number second, written as separate words.
| Number | Turkish |
|---|---|
| 21 | yirmi bir |
| 37 | otuz yedi |
| 45 | kırk beş |
| 68 | altmış sekiz |
| 99 | doksan dokuz |
The system continues upwards without a single new idea. Yüz is 100, iki yüz is 200, bin is 1,000, milyon is a million. So 1996 is bin dokuz yüz doksan altı — thousand nine hundred ninety six, in exactly that order.
One small point: for 100 and 1,000 you do not say "one hundred" or "one thousand". It is yüz and bin on their own; bir yüz would sound wrong. Turkish only adds the bir for a million: bir milyon.
When a number comes in front of a noun, the noun stays singular. Turkish does not mark plurality twice.
| Turkish | Literally | English |
|---|---|---|
| üç kitap | three book | three books |
| beş gün | five day | five days |
| yirmi kişi | twenty person | twenty people |
| iki çay | two tea | two teas |
Saying üç kitaplar is the mistake English speakers make constantly for the first month. The number has already done the counting; the plural ending would be redundant, so Turkish leaves it off. Once you notice the logic it becomes hard to get wrong.
Add an ending that follows the usual four-way vowel harmony pattern. If the number ends in a vowel, a linking -n- appears.
| Number | Ordinal | English |
|---|---|---|
| bir | birinci | first |
| iki | ikinci | second |
| üç | üçüncü | third |
| dört | dördüncü | fourth |
| beş | beşinci | fifth |
| on | onuncu | tenth |
Dört softens its t to d before the vowel, the same pattern you meet on verbs and nouns. Everything else is the plain number plus the ending.
Prices are the first place. Kaç para? or Ne kadar? both mean "how much?", and the answer will come back as a number followed by lira. Numbers spoken at speed are hard for a while, and the single best preparation is being able to produce them yourself fluently — you recognise what you can say.
Time is the second. Saat kaç? is "what time is it?", and saat means both "hour" and "clock". Phone numbers are read out digit by digit or in pairs, so the one-to-ten group carries most of the load.
A useful oddity: yüz means 100 and also means "face". Turkish has a fair number of these, and context separates them without effort.
Numbers earn their keep fastest on a clock. Saat kaç? is "what time is it?" — and saat does double duty as both "hour" and "clock".
| Turkish | English |
|---|---|
| Saat üç. | It's three o'clock. |
| Saat üç buçuk. | It's half past three. |
| Saat on iki. | It's twelve o'clock. |
| Saat kaçta? | At what time? |
Buçuk is the word for "and a half", and it is the only extra piece you need for most purposes. For anything more precise, Turkish very often simply reads the digits: 3:45 becomes üç kırk beş, three forty-five, exactly as an English speaker would say it off a phone screen. That shortcut covers you completely until you want the more traditional quarter-to and quarter-past forms.
Ask with Ne kadar? or Kaç para? and the answer comes back as a number followed by lira. There is no plural: fifty lira is elli lira, never elli liralar — the same singular-after-a-number rule as everywhere else.
Hearing prices at speed is genuinely hard for a while, and there is one reliable way to get better at it: become fluent at producing numbers yourself. You recognise what you can say. Spend two minutes a day counting out loud in tens, then in random jumps, and comprehension follows on its own.
Dates run day, then month, then year, and the year is read as a full number rather than split into pairs. So 5 March 2026 is 5 Mart 2026, with the year spoken iki bin yirmi altı — two thousand twenty-six.
The months are worth a glance now that you have the numbers, because several will look familiar from other European languages: Ocak, Şubat, Mart, Nisan, Mayıs, Haziran, Temmuz, Ağustos, Eylül, Ekim, Kasım, Aralık. Mart, Nisan and Ağustos give themselves away immediately; the rest need learning.
Ten digits plus nine tens, assembled biggest first, with no exceptions anywhere. And never put a plural ending on a noun that already has a number in front of it.
Say these aloud, then check.
Answers: (1) on dört. (2) elli iki. (3) yetmiş altı. (4) dört kahve — singular, no -ler. (5) bin dört yüz elli üç — thousand four hundred fifty three, and a date most people in Turkey can produce without thinking.
Numbers pair naturally with the everyday phrases for shops and restaurants, and with the first hundred words. The singular-after-a-number rule is one of several small gifts covered in the easiest things about Turkish.
Turkish is coming to Gora, where numbers turn up inside prices and times rather than as a column to recite. See what is coming and join the launch list.