The Decades Twenty through Ninety | Arabic (Levantine) Grammar

Lebanese twenty through ninety form a clean spoken series ending in long -īn: عشرين، تلاتين، أربعين.... These forms do not change for gender, and they do not alternate between formal nominative -ūn and oblique -īn. In urban Lebanese, -īn is the form in every sentence position.

After a decade, the counted noun is singular: عشرين كتاب، خمسين دقيقة. That is the same noun pattern used after eleven through nineteen, but it differs sharply from عشر كتب “ten books,” where the noun is plural.

The decade series

Number	Lebanese	Romanization	With a noun
20	عشرين	ʿishrīn	عشرين كتاب “twenty books”
30	تلاتين	tlētīn	تلاتين كتاب “thirty books”
40	أربعين	arbaʿīn	أربعين كتاب “forty books”
50	خمسين	khamsīn	خمسين كتاب “fifty books”
60	ستين	sittīn	ستين كتاب “sixty books”
70	سبعين	sabʿīn	سبعين كتاب “seventy books”
80	تمانين	tmēnīn	تمانين كتاب “eighty books”
90	تسعين	tisʿīn	تسعين كتاب “ninety books”

بالقاعة أربعين كرسي.

bil-ʾāʿa arbaʿīn korse.

There are forty chairs in the hall. (informal)

صارله تلاتين سنة بهالشغل.

ṣārlo tlētīn sane b-hal-shoghol.

He has been in this job for thirty years. (informal)

Each decade is one lexical word. تلاتين is historically related to three, but learners should not try to manufacture it by adding an English-style plural ending to تلاتة. Notice especially the contrasts خمستعش “fifteen” versus خمسين “fifty,” and تمنتعش “eighteen” versus تمانين “eighty.”

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Hear the ending first: teen -تعش identifies 13–19, while decade -ين identifies 20, 30, and so on. The long ī in -īn is meaning-bearing and should not be shortened.

One -īn form in every syntactic role

Formal MSA distinguishes forms such as عشرون and عشرين according to case. Lebanese does not have that case alternation. Subject, object, and prepositional phrases all keep عشرين.

وصل عشرين شخص.

wiṣel ʿishrīn shakheṣ.

Twenty people arrived. (informal; decade in a subject phrase)

دعينا عشرين شخص.

dʿīna ʿishrīn shakheṣ.

We invited twenty people. (informal; decade in an object phrase)

حكيت مع عشرين شخص.

ḥkēt maʿ ʿishrīn shakheṣ.

I spoke with twenty people. (informal; decade after a preposition)

The noun phrase changes grammatical role, but neither the decade nor شخص gains a case ending. A speaker can code-switch into MSA in a formal context, but alternating ʿishrūn/ʿishrīn inside otherwise Lebanese syntax is not the colloquial system.

The counted noun stays singular

From eleven through ninety-nine, Lebanese normally places a morphologically singular noun after the number: عشرين دقيقة، خمسين سيارة، تسعين موظف. English speakers must resist adding the plural simply because the real-world quantity exceeds one.

الطريق بياخد خمسين دقيقة بالزحمة.

eṭ-ṭarīʾ byēkhod khamsīn dʾīʾa biz-zaḥme.

The trip takes fifty minutes in traffic. (informal; singular counted noun)

الشركة وظفت ستين موظف هالسنة.

esh-shirke waẓẓafit sittīn mwaẓẓaf has-sane.

The company hired sixty employees this year. (neutral spoken Lebanese)

This singular is not an English collective noun and not a semantic claim that only one employee exists. It is the form selected by the numeral construction. For adjective agreement outside the numeral phrase, consult Gender and Number Overview.

Compare the grammatical boundary:

Number	Phrase	Noun form
10	عشر دقايق	plural دقايق
20	عشرين دقيقة	singular دقيقة

The contrast shows why translating by visual analogy is dangerous: ten remains in the 3–10 plural-noun system, while twenty selects a singular noun.

Stress and clear pronunciation

Keep the long ī in the last syllable: ʿish-RĪN, kham-SĪN, sit-TĪN. The fixed ending carries the decade contrast. Initial clusters in تلاتين and تمانين are normal Beirut phonotactics, while خمسين and سبعين may contain short transitional vowels in slower speech without changing their spelling or morphology.

قلت خمسين، مش خمستعش.

ʾilt khamsīn, mish khamstaʿash.

I said fifty, not fifteen. (informal; listening repair)

Beirut-oriented تلاتين has tlēt- and تمانين has tmēn-. Southern Levantine and Syrian varieties may use different vowel qualities, and formal speech has ثلاثين، ثمانين. Keep those systems labeled rather than treating every spelling as the same pronunciation.

Coordination: units come before decades

For 21–99 between the round decades, Lebanese says the unit first, then و, then the decade: literally “five and twenty” for 25. The unit uses its independent form, not the shortened pre-noun form.

Number	Lebanese structure	Meaning
25	خمسة وعشرين	five and twenty
34	أربعة وتلاتين	four and thirty
67	سبعة وستين	seven and sixty
89	تسعة وتمانين	nine and eighty

عمرها خمسة وعشرين سنة.

ʿomra khamse w-ʿishrīn sane.

She is twenty-five years old. (informal; unit before decade, singular noun)

بالصف أربعة وتلاتين طالب.

biṣ-ṣaff arbaʿa w-tlētīn ṭāleb.

There are thirty-four students in the class. (informal)

One and two in compounds show lexical and gender variation, so Compound Numbers 21–99 gives the full decision system. The stable insight here is the unit + و + decade order and singular noun.

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English says tens first: “thirty-four.” Lebanese says the unit first: أربعة وتلاتين. Train the order as a complete auditory chunk rather than translating each half while speaking.

Prices and durations

Decades are extremely common in transactions, ages, addresses, and durations. Currency labels often stay singular after them.

هالقميص حقه خمسين دولار.

hal-ʾamīṣ ḥaʾʾo khamsīn dōlār.

This shirt costs fifty dollars. (informal price reading)

المشوار بياخد شي تلاتين دقيقة.

el-mishwār byēkhod shi tlētīn dʾīʾa.

The trip takes about thirty minutes. (informal approximate duration)

The second example places شي before the number to soften exactness. The numeral syntax remains unchanged: تلاتين دقيقة, not a plural noun.

An exact and approximate event dialogue

قديش شخص مأكد للحفلة؟

ʾaddēsh shakheṣ mʾakkad lal-ḥafle?

Maya: How many people are confirmed for the party? (informal)

أربعين شخص بالضبط، بس يمكن يوصل العدد لشي خمسين.

arbaʿīn shakheṣ biḍ-ḍabṭ, bass yimkin yōṣal el-ʿadad la-shi khamsīn.

Rami: Exactly forty people, but the number may reach about fifty. (informal; exact count then approximate noun ellipsis)

منيح، منحضر ستين كرسي احتياط.

mnīḥ, mnḥaḍḍer sittīn korse iḥtiyāṭ.

Maya: Good, we’ll prepare sixty chairs to be safe. (informal exact capacity)

Common Mistakes

Adding an English-style plural noun

❌ في تلاتين كراسي بالقاعة.

Incorrect — a decade takes a singular counted noun.

✅ في تلاتين كرسي بالقاعة.

fī tlētīn korse bil-ʾāʿa.

There are thirty chairs in the hall. (informal)

Importing the MSA -ūn subject form

❌ وصل عشرون شخص.

✅ وصل عشرين شخص.

wiṣel ʿishrīn shakheṣ.

Twenty people arrived. (informal Lebanese)

Copying English tens-first order

❌ عمره عشرين وخمسة سنة.

Incorrect for twenty-five — Lebanese places the unit before the decade.

✅ عمره خمسة وعشرين سنة.

ʿomro khamse w-ʿishrīn sane.

He is twenty-five years old. (informal)

Shortening the unit inside a compound

❌ عندي خمس وعشرين كتاب.

Incorrect — the unit in a compound number is independent خمسة, not pre-noun خمس.

✅ عندي خمسة وعشرين كتاب.

ʿinde khamse w-ʿishrīn ktēb.

I have twenty-five books. (informal)

Key Takeaways

Use the fixed long -īn decade forms from twenty through ninety.
Keep -īn in every syntactic role; Lebanese has no MSA -ūn/-īn case alternation.
Put a singular counted noun after decades and compound numbers.
Build non-round compounds as unit + و + decade, the reverse of English order.
Preserve the teen–decade sound contrast: خمستعش is fifteen, while خمسين is fifty.

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