Numbers, days, and telling time
The numbers from zero to a thousand, the names of the days, and the way Arabic divides up the hour. Enough to read a price tag, set a meeting, and catch a train.
Arabic numbers are written with two different sets of digits — the digits we call "Arabic" in English (1, 2, 3) and the Hindi-Arabic digits used across most of the eastern Arab world (١، ٢، ٣). On signs and price tags in Egypt, the Levant, and the Gulf you will see the Eastern numerals; in Maghreb (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) the Western numerals dominate. Both read left-to-right within a number, even when the surrounding text is right-to-left.
The grammar of Arabic numbers — the way the number agrees (or, infamously, disagrees) with what is being counted — is one of the most complex parts of the language. We give you the spoken forms here for naming a price, an age, or a time. The agreement quirks belong on a separate page; see numbers in grammar for those rules.
Zero to ten
Eleven to twenty
Tens and hundreds
Telling the time
Days of the week
The Arabic week starts on Sunday and ends on Saturday. Friday is the day of congregational prayer and the standard weekly day off in many Arab countries; the official weekend is variously Friday + Saturday (Egypt, the Levant, the Gulf in many places) or Saturday + Sunday (Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco).
Yesterday, today, tomorrow
Common mistakes
- Using the masculine form of a number with hours. Hours are feminine in Arabic — as-saaʿa waHda, not as-saaʿa waaHid. The agreement quirks of Arabic numbers are covered in grammar/numbers; for everyday speech, just remember the time pattern.
- Reading the digits right-to-left. The digits within a multi-digit number read left-to-right, even when surrounded by right-to-left script. ٢٥ is twenty-five, not fifty-two.
- Mixing bukra and ghadan. Both mean "tomorrow," but using ghadan in conversation sounds like reading from a newspaper. Use bukra.
- Trusting qariib as a unit of time. "Soon" in Arabic, like in many languages, is elastic — it can mean "in five minutes" or "in two hours." Ask kam minuut? if you need a specific number.