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Fàilt’ oirbh aon uair eile gu Blasad Beag far am bi sinn a’ toirt thugaibh Gàidhlig shìmplidh! Welcome back to Blasad Beag, the section where we share some simple words and phrases for those of you who are fairly new to the language. Fàilte.

Today we’re going to look at Gaelic numbers. Àireamhan, numbers. Àireamhan.

Some of you may be aware that there are two systems of counting in Gaelic – the traditional system and the modern system which is now taught to children who are learning Gaelic at school. And, because some of you may be parents of pupils who are going through Gaelic medium education, we’re going to concentrate on the new system.

Ach tòisichidh sinn aig an fhìor thoiseach. But first, we’ll start at the very beginning; counting to ten in Gaelic. Here are the numbers aon gu deich, one to ten. Aon gu deich:

One. Aon.
Two. Dhà.
Three. Trì.
Four. Ceithir.
Five. Còig.
Six. Sia.
Seven. Seachd.
Eight. Ochd.
Nine. Naoi.
Ten. Deich.

Here they are again:

One. Aon.
Two. Dhà.
Three. Trì.
Four. Ceithir.
Five. Còig.
Six. Sia.
Seven. Seachd.
Eight. Ochd.
Nine. Naoi.
Ten. Deich.

Don’t worry if you missed any of these, as you’ll find notes and audio files on our website – bbc.co.uk/beagairbheag.

Are you ready to count a bit further? Once you know the numbers aon gu deich, one to ten, numbers aon-deug gu naoi-deug, eleven to nineteen, aon-deug gu naoi-deug, are quite easy. All you do is add the word deug to the number. So eleven would be aon-deug. Aon-deug.

Twelve would be Dhà-dheug. Dhà-dheug. Did you notice the different sound there? Any word that comes after the number two – dà or dhà – is always lenited; that means we put an “h” in front of the first letter, and that changes the sound. So deug becomes dheug. Aon-deug but dhà-dheug.

So here are numbers eleven to nineteen. Aon-deug gu naoi-deug:

Eleven. Aon-deug
Twelve. Dhà-dheug
Thirteen. Trì-deug
Fourteen. Ceithir-deug
Fifteen. Còig-deug
Sixteen. Sia-deug
Seventeen. Seachd-deug
Eighteen. Ochd-deug
Nineteen. Naoi-deug
Twenty. Fichead

Are you ready to count from one to twenty now?

Aon
Dhà
Trì
Ceithir
Còig
Sia
Seachd
Ochd
Naoi
Deich
Aon-deug
Dhà-dheug
Trì-deug
Ceithir-deug
Còig-deug
Sia-deug
Seachd-deug
Ochd-deug
Naoi-deug
Fichead

Agus sin e airson seachdain eile. That’s it from me for another week. Agus airson tuilleadh Gàidhlig shìmplidh, carson nach tòir sibh sùil air an làraich-lìn LearnGaelic.scot. To learn some more simple Gaelic phrases, why not have a look at the website and go to the Beginners section, or download the LearnGaelic Beginners App! Cheerio an-dràsta!