Welcome to Tagalog 101: Let’s count!

Today’s post will teach you how to count in Tagalog.

one – isa

two –dalawa

three – tatlo

four – apat

five – lima

six – anim

seven –pito

eight –walo

nine- siyam

ten – sampu

Now the challenging part – when you count eleven onwards you add the prefix- labing or labim followed by the other unit (which is the ones (1-9)).

Here it is-

11- labing isa

12- labing dalawa

13 –labing tatlo

14- labing apat

15 – labing lima

16 – labing anim

17 – labing pito

18 –labing walo

19 –labing siyam

20-dalawampu

For 20, you say “dalawampu” – Dalawa is two, and add the suffix ampu (from the word sampu or ten)

Now, when you count by tens, you say

10-sampu

20-dalawampu

30-tatlumpu

40-apatnapu

50-limampu

60-animnapu

70-pitumpu

80-walumpo

90-siyamnapu

100-isangdaan

 

Most of the Filipinos are used to saying the numbers in the Spanish language. Until now, you can hear our old folks counting in Spanish. Uno, dos, tres, quarto, cinco, syete, seis, otso, nueve, diyes, onse, dose, trese, katorse, kinse, desi seis desi syete, desi otso, desi nueve, vente, vente uno etc…

There are provinces who are really using the pure Tagalog dialect/language.These are the major ethnic groups in Aurora, Bataan, Batangas, Cavite, Bulacan, Laguna, Marinduque, Nueva Ecija, Occidental Mindoro, Oriental Mindoro, Quezon, Rizal and Zambales.

 

Here’s an additional information, the tagalog terms per digit.

  Thank you and until our next post!