You'll need a number before lunch on your first day in Cairo. The price of a pen, say, or the number of the friend who's meeting you. That's why numbers come early in our course, in unit 3, right after greetings and the things on your desk.
Ten words. Here they are.
waa7ed to 3ashara
| Egyptian | ||
|---|---|---|
| 1 | واحد | |
| 2 | اتنين | |
| 3 | تلاتة | |
| 4 | أربعة | |
| 5 | خمسة | |
| 6 | ستة | |
| 7 | سبعة | |
| 8 | تمانية | |
| 9 | تسعة | |
| 10 | عشرة |
A few things to listen for. talaata and tamanya both start with a plain t. 'arba3a starts with the glottal stop, the little catch we write with an apostrophe. 3ashara and sab3a both carry the 3, the ayn, which comes from deep in the throat. If it feels odd, that's normal. It takes a while.
Hear them in runs:
- A countdown.
And for sums, the word is yeb'o, they make: Five and five make ten. Notice we- for "and". It sticks to the next word.
Numbers next to a noun
With one thing, the number comes after the noun, like an adjective: , one book. And it agrees. A bag is feminine, so it's shanTa wa7da, which you'll hear in (These are bags, not one bag.)
From three to ten the number goes first, and there's a rule our grammar notes flag early. When you count a plural noun, 3 to 10 lose their final -a. talaata becomes talat in talat kutub, three books. khamsa becomes khamas in khamas sa3aat, five hours. We don't have those two phrases recorded yet, so treat them as reading practice for now.
Prices: khamsa gineeh
Here's where that rule breaks, and it's the place you'll use numbers most. The Egyptian pound is the . With prices you keep the full number, and gineeh doesn't go plural.
- , five pounds
- , ten pounds
To ask the price, put after the thing. Literally it's "for how much".
- How much is the pen? Five pounds.
- Ten pounds? Fine.
- One pound? That's cheap!
Prices go past ten fast, so a few bigger notes are worth knowing by ear even before you learn the tens properly: (twenty), (fifty) and (a hundred). And for coins, half and quarter work on the pound too: I've only got half a pound on me.
Phone numbers, digit by digit
Egyptians read phone numbers one digit at a time, so the ten words above are all you need. The word for number is . Add -i for my and it becomes nimriti.
- What's your number, Karim?
- My number is 5379.
The question word is , how many, and it sits at the end of the sentence. Asking a woman, the ending switches to -ik: Flight numbers work the same way:
Telling the time with es-saa3a
means watch, clock and hour. With el- in front it turns into es-saa3a (the l blends into the s), and that's how you ask the time and how you answer.
- What time is it?
- It's exactly ten.
Minutes come in chunks you add on with we-: is half, is a quarter, and is a third, which on a clock means twenty minutes. For "to", use 'ella.
- Half past three.
- A quarter past five.
- Twenty to seven.
- It's about nine.
One quirk. saa3a is feminine, so one o'clock is es-saa3a wa7da, with the feminine form of one. Everything else uses the plain counting words.
Once you've got the hours, the days of the week are a short step. Five of them are counted from Sunday, so they'll sound familiar.
Common questions
How do you count to ten in Egyptian Arabic? waa7ed, etneen, talaata, 'arba3a, khamsa, setta, sab3a, tamanya, tes3a, 3ashara. Most of them end in -a when you count out loud.
Is it khamsa gineeh or khamas gineeh? khamsa gineeh. Before a counted plural, 3 to 10 drop the final -a, so you get talat kutub for three books. Prices don't follow that rule. You keep the full number, and gineeh stays singular.
How do Egyptians say phone numbers? One digit at a time. nimriti sab3a, tes3a, waa7ed, khamsa is "my number is 7915". To ask someone else's, say nimritak kaam? to a man or nimritik kaam? to a woman.
How do you ask the time in Egyptian Arabic? es-saa3a kaam? The answer starts the same way, es-saa3a, then the hour: es-saa3a talaata is three o'clock. Add we-nuSS for half past and we-rub3 for a quarter past.