Somali Numbers and Counting: Money, Ages, Dates, Fractions & More

Somali numbers for everyday counting, dates, money and fractions.

Knowing how to count in Somali helps you do much more than recite a list. You can ask a price, explain your age, confirm an appointment, share a telephone number, or measure half a kilo of something at the market.

This guide takes you from eber (zero) to a million, then shows how numbers work in everyday situations. The explanations are in English, with Somali examples and translations. Click linked Somali words to look them up in the Qaamuus dictionary.

A note on variation: Somali spelling and everyday usage vary. You may see labo/laba, toddobo/toddoba, and koowaad/kowaad. The examples use a consistent set of common forms without treating regional alternatives as errors.

In this guide

• Counting from 0 to 100 and beyond
• Kow, hal, and counting things
• Ordinals: first, second, third
• Money and prices
• Ages
• Dates, months, and years
• Telephone numbers and digit strings
• Fractions, decimals, and percentages
• Measurements and durations
• Practice and answers

1. Somali numbers: start with 0–10

Practise these slowly before moving to bigger numbers. In sagaal and siddeed, hold the doubled vowel longer. The letter x in lix and saddex is not the English “ks” sound; it is a voiceless pharyngeal sound. Listen to a fluent speaker rather than relying on English respellings.

11–20: add “iyo toban”

Iyo means “and.” A useful starting pattern for the teens is the unit followed by iyo toban.

Tens, hundreds, thousands, and a million

Once the tens are familiar, practise combining them with the units:

You will also hear tens-first forms, such as labaatan iyo shan for 25. Recognize both orders; the examples here generally use units first.

For larger numbers, build the amount in manageable pieces:

Number forms and everyday uses can also be practised with Harvard ELIAS’s Somali numbers lesson.

2. Kow or hal? How to say “one”

Use kow when counting in sequence or forming a compound number. Use hal before a noun meaning one item; it is also used for the digit 1 when reading a phone number or code. Compare:

• Kow, laba, saddex… — One, two, three…
• Hal koob. — One cup.
• Kow iyo labaatan. — Twenty-one.

Do not automatically add an English-style plural after every number. Learn the whole quantity phrase: laba koob (two cups), but laba saacadood (two hours). Somali uses counting forms, which depend on the noun. See Morgan Nilsson’s Learner’s Somali Grammar, sections 6.8 and 7.

3. Ordinal numbers: first, second, third

Cardinal numbers answer “How many?” Ordinal numbers tell you position or order: which lesson, which floor, or which person in a line. The familiar written ending is -aad.

For example, casharka lixaad means “the sixth lesson,” while bogga sagaalaad means “the ninth page.” Notice that the ordinal follows the noun.

You may encounter tobanaad alongside tobnaad. Also, toddobaad can mean “week” in a different context; it means “seventh” in a phrase such as casharka toddobaad.

4. Money: ask a price and name the currency

Do not leave the currency implicit when it could be misunderstood. Doolar means dollar and shilin means shilling. If necessary, say which dollar or shilling currency you mean. These are language examples, not current market prices or exchange rates.

Amounts with cents

For an amount such as $12.50, say the whole currency amount and the cents separately: laba iyo toban doolar iyo konton senti — twelve dollars and fifty cents. This is usually clearer in a transaction than reading the decimal without naming the units.

A short practice exchange:

Customer: Qalinkani waa imisa? — How much is this pen?
Seller: Waa laba doolar. — It is two dollars.
Customer: Waxaan rabaa laba qalin. — I want two pens.
Seller: Waa afar doolar. — It is four dollars.

5. Saying your age

Use jir expressions to talk about age, rather than translating the English wording word for word.

Try replacing the number in Waxaan jiraa ___ sano with your own age. Keep the whole phrase together as you practise.

6. Dates, months, and years

A clear written example is 4 Sebteembar 2026 — 4 September 2026. Spelling out the month avoids the ambiguity of a date such as 04/09/2026, which readers may interpret differently.

Kulanku waa 4-ta Sebteembar 2026. — The meeting is on 4 September 2026.
Waxaan dhashay 2000. — I was born in 2000.

Read 2000 as laba kun. For 2026, one reading is laba kun iyo lix iyo labaatan. Breaking the year into “two thousand” and “twenty-six” makes it easier to practise.

Gregorian month names

Month spellings vary, including Sebtembar and Sebteembar. These are Gregorian month names; do not confuse them with the Islamic lunar months or traditional Somali calendar terminology. For seasonal and calendar vocabulary, see the ELIAS time and seasons lesson.

7. Telephone numbers: read the digits, not the total

A telephone number identifies a line; it is not an amount. Read it digit by digit and pause between groups. Keep any leading zero. Use hal for the digit 1.

Practise with this short digit sequence, not a real contact number: 0 – 7 – 1 – 8 – 4 – 2.

Eber — toddoba — hal — siddeed — afar — laba.

Lambarka taleefankaagu waa imisa? — What is your telephone number?
Fadlan si tartiib ah u sheeg. — Please say it slowly.
Fadlan mar kale ku celi. — Please repeat it.

If you are sharing an international number, state the country code separately. Repeat the full digit sequence back to check it. Practise with invented digits, not a real password or verification code.

8. Fractions: halves, thirds, and quarters

A fraction describes parts of a whole. In a phrase such as afar meelood saddex, four tells you how many equal parts make the whole and three tells you how many are being counted.

You may also hear badh for a half and rubac for a quarter. For example, nus kiilo means half a kilogram, and kiilo iyo bar means a kilogram and a half.

Decimals

In a decimal reading, dhibic marks the point. Reading the following digits individually makes zeros and place values explicit:

The zero in 2.05 matters: it is not the same number as 2.5. For mathematical terminology and decimal notation, see the Somali-medium Grade 4 mathematics textbook, chapter 3, and the Finnish National Agency for Education’s Somali mathematics glossary.

Percentages

Boqolkiiba expresses “percent”:

• 10% — boqolkiiba toban
• 25% — boqolkiiba shan iyo labaatan
• 50% — boqolkiiba konton

For practice, connect the forms: ½ = 0.5 = 50%, and ¼ = 0.25 = 25%. A 25% share means 25 out of 100 equal parts.

9. Measurements, durations, and simple arithmetic

Attach the right unit to make a number useful:

For appointments, confirm morning or evening, the local time convention, and the time zone if relevant. An unqualified clock number can be misunderstood; durations such as “two hours” avoid that particular ambiguity.

Try these arithmetic readings:

• Laba lagu daray saddex waa shan. — Two plus three is five.
• Shan laga jaray laba waa saddex. — Five minus two is three.

10. Common mistakes to avoid

• Using one form of “one” everywhere: distinguish counting kow from quantity or digit-string hal.
• Reading a telephone number as a quantity: preserve each digit and every zero.
• Confusing cardinal and ordinal: “three” is saddex; “third” is saddexaad.
• Leaving out a decimal zero: 2.05 and 2.5 have different values.
• Leaving out the unit: five dollars, five shillings, and five kilos are very different things.
• Treating every regional form as an error: listen for consistent local patterns while learning the forms in this guide.

11. Test yourself

1. Write 18 in Somali.
2. Write 42 using the units-first pattern.
3. How do you say “one cup”?
4. What is the Somali word for “fifth”?
5. Say “I am twenty years old.”
6. Read the practice digits 0–1–5–9.
7. How do you say “three quarters”?
8. Read 3.04 aloud.
9. What does boqolkiiba konton mean?
10. Write 2,500 in Somali.

Answers

1. Siddeed iyo toban.
2. Laba iyo afartan.
3. Hal koob.
4. Shanaad.
5. Waxaan jiraa labaatan sano.
6. Eber, hal, shan, sagaal.
7. Afar meelood saddex.
8. Saddex dhibic eber afar.
9. Fifty percent.
10. Laba kun iyo shan boqol.

Make numbers part of your daily Somali

Start by counting ten things around you. Then practise one price, one age, one date, and one imaginary phone-number sequence. Finally, read a recipe measurement or a percentage aloud. Using numbers in a real sentence is more memorable than reciting them in isolation.

Explore more meanings in the Qaamuus Somali dictionary. Which number expression would you like explained next?

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