Count Like a Local: Darija Numbers, Prices, and the Magic of Khamsa

Most number tutorials in Arabic dump a hundred numbers on you. One through twenty, then the tens, then the hundreds, then the thousands. Five hundred flashcards by the time you finish.

You don't need five hundred flashcards. Moroccan numbers run on a pattern that repeats itself.

• Numbers 1 through 10 are the building blocks
• Numbers 11 through 19 are their own short family with the -ash / -tash suffix: 7dash (11), Tnash (12), Taltash (13), and so on through Tse3tash (19). Learn them as a group.
• Tens from 30 onwards follow a clean -in pattern: Tlatin (30), Rab3in (40), Khamsin (50). Twenty is the one outlier: 3achrin.
• Compound numbers 21-99 use [ones] + o + [tens]: Wa7ad o 3achrin (21), Tlata o 3achrin (23). The twist: when the ones digit is 2, it becomes tnino (never jouj): Tnino 3achrin (22), Tnino tlatin (32), Tnino rab3in (42), and so on through Tnino tse3in (92).
• Hundreds use mia: Mia o wa7ad (101), Mia o 3achra (110), Mia o 7dash (111), Mia o 3achrin (120). The same rules repeat after 100: Mia o tnino tlatin (132). It's literally 100 + any number from 1 to 99.

Once you've learned the ten numbers below plus the word for dirham, you've quietly learned how to say every number from one to one thousand. You've also earned the right to bargain at any stall in any souk. The cultural words wrapped around them (khamsa the hand, derham the coin) are the parts that turn a transaction into a conversation.

Jemaa el-Fnaa, Marrakech. Late afternoon. You stop at one of the painted-wood orange juice carts.

The vendor smiles. You point at the pyramid of oranges. Wa7ed, 3afak. One, please.

Wa7ed? Wala jouj? One? Or two?

You hold up two fingers. Jouj. Two. He grins, grabs the oranges, starts pressing.

The juice arrives in two small glasses, foam still settling. You drink. It's the best thing you've tasted all day. The price card says 4 Dh per glass.

Bch7al kolchi? How much for everything?

Tmenia draham, he says. Eight dirhams. Khamsa wa tlata. Five and three. Eight. He narrates the math the way every Moroccan does — pieces first, total second. Once you start hearing it, you'll catch yourself doing it too.

You hand him a 3achra. A ten-dirham coin. He hands back two singles. Choukran. He waves. Baslam. You walk back into the square with the taste of oranges and the small satisfaction of having paid the right number without opening your phone.

Khamsa is everywhere. The number five doubles as the most beloved cultural symbol in Morocco. The hand-shaped charm (also called the Hand of Fatima) hangs above doorways, on car mirrors, on baby cribs, on jewelry. Saying khamsa warmly will earn you smiles for reasons that have nothing to do with math.

French numbers still work. In bigger cities (Casablanca, Rabat, Tangier), vendors often quote prices in French: vingt dirhams (20), cinquante (50), cent (100). Both languages are completely fluent in any shop. Use whichever you remember faster and you'll be understood.

Centimes exist on price tags. When you see 12.50 Dh, the .50 is fifty centimes (half a dirham). Spoken price is usually tnash wa nuss (twelve and a half). Smaller cafés often round to the nearest dirham anyway.

Round numbers in cafés, odd numbers in souks. Café and restaurant prices tend to land on clean numbers (15, 30, 45). Souk prices often start odd (47, 83, 142). That's part of the bargaining dance. After negotiation, prices usually settle on a round number anyway.

The bill-flip thumb. Watch Moroccans count cash. They hold a stack of bills in one hand and flip the corner of each with their thumb. Fast, quiet, confident. It's not the same as Western finger-counting. You don't need to learn it, but you'll start to admire it.

Ten numbers. One currency. A whole country priced in the same easy pattern.

The nice thing about Moroccan numbers is that you don't need to memorize them all at once. Wa7ed = 1, Jouj = 2, Khamsa = 5, 3achra = 10, and Mia = 100 will carry you through your first week. By the second, you'll catch yourself saying Tnash wa nuss = 12.5 without translating it in your head. By the third, you'll be hearing Mia o khamsin = 150 and reaching for the right bills before the vendor finishes the sentence.

Somewhere in the middle of all that, you'll buy a khamsa charm from a jewelry stall in the medina, hang it from the rearview mirror of your taxi when you get home, and remember, every time you see it, the first afternoon you held up five fingers in Morocco and felt the country welcome you back.

Time to count.