This document provides an overview of how to count in Tibetan from 0 to 99. It explains that numbers from 0 to 10 are similar to European languages. From 11 to 19, numbers add the suffix "-one" (e.g. ten-one for 11). Numbers from 20 to 99 follow patterns where the tens place shifts prefixes or suffixes and connective words are used to count into the next ten. Overall, the system uses prefixes, suffixes and derivations to systematically count into the hundreds.

1. How to count in Tibetan

2. From 0 to 10
Well, this is pretty much like in any other
language (or european language, at least).
From 11 to 19
11 is: བཅུ་གཅིག་ which means ten-one and so on
until 19.
The pronounciation for 15 and 18 has shifted
from བཅུ་ to བཅོ་, be careful!

3. From 20 to 99
20: ཉི་ཤུ་ means two-ten with two that has shifted
from གཉིས་ to ཉི་ and ten that has shifted form བཅུ་
to ཤུ་.
30: སུམ་ཅུ་ means three-ten with three that has
shifted from གསུམ་ to སུམ་.
Then there is no more shift for the first number,
only for ten.

4. From 20 to 99
Here is the trick: for all the numbers that have a
suffix, ten is written: ཅུ་, and for the others, ten
has its prefix: བཅུ་
Examples:
བཞི་ (four) does not have a suffix → བཞི་བཅུ་ (forty)
བརྒྱད་ (eight) does have a suffix → བརྒྱད་ཅུ་ (eighty)

5. From 20 to 99
If you want to say the other numbers, you need to
learn the connective word:
20: ཉི་ཤུ་ → connective word: རྩ་ → 21: ཉི་ཤུ་རྩ་གཅིག་
30: སུམ་ཅུ་
→
སོ་ → 31: སུམ་ཅུ་སོ་གཅིག་
40: བཞི་བཅུ་
→
ཞེ་ → 41: བཞི་བཅུ་ཞེ་གཅིག་
50: ལྔ་བཅུ་
→
ང་ → 51: ལྔ་བཅུ་ང་གཅིག་
60: དྲུག་ཅུ་
→
རེ་ → 61: དྲུག་ཅུ་རེ་གཅིག་
70: བདུན་ཅུ་
→
དོན་ → 71: བདུན་ཅུ་དོན་གཅིག་
80: བརྒྱད་ཅུ་
→
གྱ་ → 81: བརྒྱད་ཅུ་གྱ་གཅིག་
90: དགུ་བཅུ་
→
གོ་ → 91: དགུ་བཅུ་གོ་གཅིག་

6. The first time I saw this system, I wondered how
I could remember it, it seemed so difficult.
But actually, the connective words are derivated
from the number they are connected to (except
with 20), so it makes things much easier!
Later in the course, I will write about the bigger
numbers.