Numbers Eleven through Nineteen | Arabic (Levantine) Grammar

Lebanese eleven through nineteen are tight compounds, not phrases joined by “and.” تلتعش tlēttaʿash is “thirteen,” while تلاتة وعشرة means “three and ten” as two separate quantities. The compound changes slightly before a counted noun, and the noun returns to the singular: تلتعشر كتاب “thirteen books.”

This range therefore reverses the noun-number pattern learners just mastered. Three through ten take a plural noun; eleven through nineteen take a singular noun.

The teen series has one compact rhythm

The compounds end in a reduced descendant of عشرة. In the independent forms below, pronounce the whole number as one rhythmic word and do not pause between its parts.

Number	Independent form	Romanization
11	حدعش	ḥdaʿash
12	تنعش	tnaʿash
13	تلتعش	tlēttaʿash
14	أربعتعش	arbaʿtaʿash
15	خمستعش	khamstaʿash
16	ستعش	sittaʿash
17	سبعتعش	sabaʿtaʿash
18	تمنتعش	tmantaʿash
19	تسعتعش	tisaʿtaʿash

The spellings of colloquial compounds vary because everyday Arabic writing is not fully standardized. Within this page, the forms above represent the cluster-initial Beirut pronunciation consistently. In particular, حدعش and تنعش are not mechanically واحد + عشرة and اتنين + عشرة; they must be learned as high-frequency irregular wholes. Spellings with an initial alif also occur when a writer represents a helping vowel.

ضل معنا حدعش.

ḍall maʿna ḥdaʿash.

We have eleven left. (informal; noun omitted)

وصلوا تنعش، والباقي اعتذروا.

wiṣlo tnaʿash, wil-bāʾe iʿtazaro.

Twelve arrived, and the rest apologized. (informal; independent total)

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Chunk each teen as one lexical item. If you assemble it afresh from a unit, و, and ten, you will produce a different Lebanese phrase.

Before a noun, the final r surfaces

In a clear Beirut-oriented count phrase, the compound has a linking r before the noun: حدعشر كتاب، تنعشر سيارة. This -ar is a surviving construct-like form of the ten component.

Number	Before a noun	Counted-noun phrase
11	حدعشر ḥdaʿashar	حدعشر كتاب “eleven books”
12	تنعشر tnaʿashar	تنعشر سيارة “twelve cars”
13	تلتعشر tlēttaʿashar	تلتعشر كتاب “thirteen books”
14	أربعتعشر arbaʿtaʿashar	أربعتعشر سيارة “fourteen cars”
15	خمستعشر khamstaʿashar	خمستعشر كتاب “fifteen books”
16	ستعشر sittaʿashar	ستعشر سيارة “sixteen cars”
17	سبعتعشر sabaʿtaʿashar	سبعتعشر كتاب “seventeen books”
18	تمنتعشر tmantaʿashar	تمنتعشر سيارة “eighteen cars”
19	تسعتعشر tisaʿtaʿashar	تسعتعشر كتاب “nineteen books”

طلبنا حدعشر كرسي للقاعة.

ṭlabna ḥdaʿashar korse lal-ʾāʿa.

We ordered eleven chairs for the hall. (informal; before-noun form)

عندها تمنتعشر سنة وبلشت جامعة.

ʿinda tmantaʿashar sane w-ballashit zhēmʿa.

She is eighteen years old and has started university. (informal)

In very casual speech, the final r may weaken or disappear for some speakers, and other Levantine communities use different teen endings. For active production, the independent versus before-noun contrast gives a clear Lebanese model; for listening, expect compression.

The counted noun is singular

English says “eleven books,” but Lebanese says literally “eleven book”: حدعشر كتاب. This singular pattern continues through the decades and most numbers to ninety-nine.

قعدنا سبعتعشر دقيقة ناطرين.

ʾaʿadna sabaʿtaʿashar dʾīʾa nāṭrīn.

We sat waiting for seventeen minutes. (informal; singular counted noun)

بالفندق تسعتعشر غرفة بس.

bil-fondoʾ tisaʿtaʿashar ghorfe bass.

The hotel has only nineteen rooms. (informal; singular counted noun)

The noun is morphologically singular even though the whole phrase refers to many objects. Its adjectives and pronouns follow the intended phrase structure and discourse; detailed nonhuman agreement belongs to Gender and Number Overview.

Compare the boundary at ten and eleven:

Quantity	Lebanese	Noun form
10	عشر سيارات	plural سيارات
11	حدعشر سيارة	singular سيارة

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The fastest diagnostic is the noun: 3–10 demand a plural, while 11–99 normally demand a singular. Do not let the English plural obscure that Arabic boundary.

Gender is leveled in the Beirut baseline

Formal Arabic has a complex split system inside teen numbers: different pieces respond differently to noun gender. Ordinary urban Lebanese largely neutralizes those contrasts, just as it does from three through ten. Use the same teen before masculine كتاب and feminine سيارة.

باعوا أربعتعشر كتاب وأربعتعشر سيارة.

bēʿo arbaʿtaʿashar ktēb w-arbaʿtaʿashar sayyāra.

They sold fourteen books and fourteen cars. (informal Beirut; leveled gender form)

MSA أحد عشر، إحدى عشرة، ثلاثة عشر، ثلاث عشرة belongs to a formal system with its own agreement and case grammar. A Lebanese speaker may use it while reading formal text or deliberately style-shifting, but it should not be blended halfway into a casual teen compound.

Regional Syrian, Palestinian, Jordanian, and Lebanese forms may have -ṭāsh, -tāsh, -ʿash, different vowel qualities, or a different degree of final-r retention. These variants are mutually informative but not a menu for constructing a fictional pan-Levantine form.

Stress and high-frequency compression

Teen numbers carry a strong final rhythmic unit. Keep the beginning attached to -تعش: kham-sta-ʿash, not khamse | ʿashara. Frequent compounds undergo reductions that cannot be predicted by simply concatenating citation numbers.

11: حدعش, not واحدعش
12: تنعش, not اتنينعش
13: تلتعش, with a compressed three component
15: خمستعش, where the cluster bridges the two historical pieces
16: ستعش, an especially compact form

رقم البناية خمستعش، مش خمسين.

raʾam el-bināye khamstaʿash, mish khamsīn.

The building number is fifteen, not fifty. (informal; independent teen contrasted with decade)

This fifteen–fifty contrast is a listening trap: khamstaʿash has the teen ending; khamsīn has long ī and no ʿash component.

Times and prices

A clock hour is an independent number, so eleven is الساعة حدعش without the before-noun r. A duration directly counts a noun and uses حدعشر ساعة.

الموعد الساعة حدعش.

el-mawʿed es-sēʿa ḥdaʿash.

The appointment is at eleven. (informal time reading)

الرحلة أخدت حدعشر ساعة.

er-riḥle akhadit ḥdaʿashar sēʿa.

The trip took eleven hours. (informal duration; singular noun)

Prices also take a singular count noun after a teen:

هالكتاب حقه خمستعشر دولار.

hal-ktēb ḥaʾʾo khamstaʿashar dōlār.

This book costs fifteen dollars. (informal price reading)

Exact and approximate quantities in dialogue

قديش كرسي حجزت للغدا؟

ʾaddēsh korse ḥazhazt lal-ghada?

Maya: How many chairs did you reserve for lunch? (informal)

حجزت تنعشر كرسي بالضبط، بس يمكن نحتاج شي خمستعش.

ḥazhazt tnaʿashar korse biḍ-ḍabṭ, bass yimkin niḥtēzh shi khamstaʿash.

Rami: I reserved exactly twelve chairs, but we may need about fifteen. (informal; exact count and noun-ellipsis approximation)

منيح، بخبر المطعم يحضر تلتعشر كرسي مبدئيا.

mnīḥ, bkhabbir el-maṭʿam yḥaḍḍer tlēttaʿashar korse mabdaʾiyyan.

Maya: Good, I’ll tell the restaurant to prepare thirteen chairs for now. (informal)

The second turn has before-noun تنعشر, but independent approximate شي خمستعش because “chairs” is omitted after the approximate total.

Common Mistakes

Keeping the counted noun plural

❌ حجزت تنعشر كراسي.

Incorrect for the baseline — eleven through nineteen take a singular counted noun.

✅ حجزت تنعشر كرسي.

ḥazhazt tnaʿashar korse.

I reserved twelve chairs. (informal)

Inserting و inside a teen

❌ عندي تلاتة وعشرة كتاب.

Incorrect for thirteen — this says ‘three and ten’ rather than one teen compound.

✅ عندي تلتعشر كتاب.

ʿinde tlēttaʿashar ktēb.

I have thirteen books. (informal)

Building eleven and twelve mechanically

❌ واحدتعش، اتنينتعش.

Incorrect — eleven and twelve have lexicalized high-frequency forms.

✅ حدعش، تنعش.

ḥdaʿash, tnaʿash.

Eleven, twelve. (informal independent forms)

Mixing MSA case and agreement into Lebanese

❌ اشتريت أحد عشر كتابا.

✅ اشتريت حدعشر كتاب.

ishtarēt ḥdaʿashar ktēb.

I bought eleven books. (informal Beirut)

Key Takeaways

Treat eleven through nineteen as compact lexical compounds with no و inside.
Use a singular counted noun after every teen number.
In clear Beirut-oriented speech, independent -عش alternates with linking -عشر before a noun.
Use one leveled teen series across noun genders in the production baseline; keep MSA agreement separate.
Expect regional endings and casual compression in listening without randomly blending them into your own forms.

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