Sayılar — counting from 0 to 100
Turkish numbers are wonderfully regular. Learn 0-10, then the multiples of 10, and you can build everything up to 99 by simple concatenation. yirmi beş = twenty-five (literally 'twenty five', no hyphen, no special word like English 'and'). yüz = 100. The big rule from lesson 4 still holds: numbers are always followed by SINGULAR nouns. iki kitap = two books, never iki kitaplar.
0 through 10
sıfır = 0 (note the dotless ı's). bir = 1. iki = 2. üç = 3. dört = 4. beş = 5. altı = 6 (note the dotless ı). yedi = 7. sekiz = 8. dokuz = 9. on = 10. These ten words plus their multiples of ten cover almost everything you'll need.
Multiples of ten
on = 10. yirmi = 20. otuz = 30. kırk = 40 (dotless ı). elli = 50. altmış = 60 (dotless ı). yetmiş = 70. seksen = 80. doksan = 90. yüz = 100. Notice the rough relationship to 6, 7, 8, 9 in the 60-90 words: altı/altmış, yedi/yetmiş, sekiz/seksen, dokuz/doksan — they all share a root.
Building 11-99
Just write the tens word, then a space, then the units word. on bir = 11. on iki = 12. on üç = 13. ... yirmi = 20, yirmi bir = 21, yirmi iki = 22 ... otuz beş = 35. kırk yedi = 47. doksan dokuz = 99. There's no 'and', no special joiner. Compounds are written with a space, not hyphenated.
Numbers + nouns: stay singular
After ANY number, the noun stays singular — even if logically plural. iki kitap = two books. beş çocuk = five children. yirmi yıl = twenty years. yüz kişi = a hundred people. The number does the plural-marking work. Adding -lar/-ler here would be a beginner mistake.
Reading larger numbers
yüz = 100. iki yüz = 200. üç yüz = 300. bin = 1,000. iki bin = 2,000. bin dokuz yüz doksan dokuz = 1,999. iki bin yirmi altı = 2026 — the year. Just chain hundreds, thousands, and the under-100 part. Phone numbers are usually read digit by digit.
Asking 'how much' and 'how many'
Kaç? asks 'how many' (countable): Kaç kitap var? = 'How many books are there?'. For prices and quantities of stuff like water or sugar, you use ne kadar ('how much'): Ne kadar? = 'How much (does it cost)?'. The answer comes with the currency: on lira = 10 liras. Note: Turkish currency stays singular too.
