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Thai Numbers and Numerals

Being able to speak and understand numbers in Thai is an essential skill for any traveler in Thailand. Bartering is common when arranging transportation or making purchases at many markets. Even when not bartering, it is important to understand spoken prices, although merchants who frequently see tourists always have a small calculator to show you prices (and even allow you to barter by punching in your offer).

The Thai language requires the use of words called classifiers when you wish to talk about a number of items (nouns). These "counting words" are discussed here.

Although Thai has its own numerals, western digits are more commonly used throughout Thailand so it is less essential to learn the exotic digits.

Numerals zero through nine
digit	Thai numeral	Thai word	Phonemic transcription
0	๐	ศูนย์	suun[y]R (zero)
1	๑	หนึ่ง	neungL (one)
2	๒	สอง	saawngR (two)
3	๓	สาม	saamR (three)
4	๔	สี่	seeL (four)
5	๕	ห้า	haaF (five)
6	๖	หก	hohkL (six)
7	๗	เจ็ด	jetL (seven)
8	๘	แปด	bpaaetL (eight)
9	๙	เก้า	gaoF (nine)

Counting ten and beyond
number	Thai word	Phonemic transcription
10	สิบ	sipL (ten)
100	ร้อย	raawyH (hundred)
1,000	พัน	phanM (thousand)
10,000	หมื่น	meuunL (ten-thousand)
100,000	แสน	saaenR (hundred-thousand)
1,000,000	ล้าน	laanH (million)
1.0E7	considered "ten million"
1.0E8	considered "hundred million"
1.0E9	considered "thousand million"

Using these charts, arbitrary numbers in Thai can be constructed much as they are inEnglish. However, please note the following:

Numbers ending in one between eleven and ninety-one use the word เอ็ด /etL/ instead of หนึ่ง /neungL/ (one, 1) as in the following:

หนึ่ง neungL one, 1

สิบ เอ็ด sipL etL eleven, 11

สาม สิบ เอ็ด saamR sipL etL thirty-one, 31

ร้อย หนึ่ง raawyH neungL one hundred one, 101
Numbers between twelve and nineteen are not special as they are in English. They are considered "ten-two," "ten-three," etc.
If a rule in English is to add -ty to a digit to obtain the tens series, then twenty, thirty, and fifty are exceptions. In Thai, the only special word is ยี่สิบ /yeeF sipL/ (twenty, 20).
Ordinals are formed by prefixing a number with the word ที่ /theeF/ as in the following examples:

ที่หนึ่ง theeF neungL first

ที่สอง theeF saawngR second

ที่สิบเอ็ด theeF sipL etL eleventh
Note that the words Ten-thousand and hundred-thousand are not compounds as they are in English‚there are unique Thai words for these shown in the chart above.
The word หนึ่ง /neungL/ (one, 1) can be omitted if it occurs at the beginning of any number (other than one, of course).
โท /thohM/ is used instead of สอง /saawngR/ (two, 2) when saying a telephone number, perhaps because this is believed to eliminate confusion between two and three if the connection is poor.

Examples
number	Thai numerals	Thai spelling	Phonemic transcription
1	๑	หนึ่ง	neungL
21	๒๑	ยี่สิบ เอ็ด	yeeF sipL etL
22	๒๒	ยี่สิบ สอง	yeeF sipL saawngR
12,345	๑๒๓๔๕	หมื่น สอง พัน สาม ร้อย สี่สิบ ห้า	meuunL saawngR phanM saamR raawyH seeL sipL haaF