Learning how to count in Azerbaijani is one of the most useful things you’ll do as a beginner.

You need numbers for shopping, telling time, and giving out your phone number.

Azerbaijani numbers follow a very logical and predictable pattern.

Once you memorize a few base numbers, you can easily count all the way to one million.

This guide will teach you exactly how the numbering system works.

Numbers from 0 to 10

The most important step is learning the numbers from zero to ten.

These base numbers form the foundation for every other number in the Azerbaijani language.

Spend plenty of time practicing these until they become second nature.

You might notice a few regional pronunciation shifts when speaking with locals.

For example, native speakers often pronounce the word for eight (səkkiz) with a slight “g” sound, making it sound more like “səkgiz”.

Numbers from 11 to 19

Forming numbers from eleven to nineteen in Azerbaijani is incredibly simple.

You don’t need to memorize any new words or irregular exceptions.

You simply take the word for ten (on) and add the single digit right after it.

It translates literally to “ten one”, “ten two”, and so on.

Counting by tens (10 to 90)

To count past nineteen, you need to learn the words for the multiples of ten.

Unlike English, where “twenty” and “thirty” sound somewhat like “two” and “three”, Azerbaijani tens have their own distinct words.

You’ll need to memorize this list.

When speaking fast, many Azerbaijanis drop the “l” in sixty (altmış). You’ll often hear it pronounced as “atmış” in casual conversation.

To make compound numbers like 25 or 43, the rule is exactly the same as before. You simply say the “tens” word followed by the single digit.

For example, 25 is iyirmi beş (twenty-five).

Another example is 43, which translates to qırx üç (forty-three).

Numbers 100 and beyond

Once you understand the basic logic, reaching the thousands and millions is a breeze.

The word for one hundred is yüz.

To say two hundred, you just say “two” and then “hundred” (iki yüz).

If you want to say a complex number like 145, you just string the words together in order.

You’d say yüz qırx beş (hundred forty-five).

Ordinal numbers (first, second, third)

Ordinal numbers tell you the position of something in a list. In English, these are words like first, second, and third.

In Azerbaijani, you create ordinal numbers by adding a suffix to the end of the base number.

Because of vowel harmony, the suffix will be either -ıncı, -inci, -uncu, or -üncü.

If the number already ends in a vowel, you drop the first vowel of the suffix to avoid having two vowels next to each other.

Asking about price in Azerbaijani

Now that you know your numbers, you can start using them in real life.

One of the most common ways you’ll use numbers is when shopping at markets in Azerbaijan.

Here’s a short dialogue showing how to ask for a price.