Numbers
Ten words to learn by heart, one simple rule, and you can count up to a million. It really is easier than in English.
This is all the memorising on this page: eleven little words. Listen to each card, repeat out loud, then move on to the next tab.
0zelo
1moko
2mibale
3misato
4minei
5mitano
6motoba
7sambo
8mwambe
9libwa
10zomi
Lingala builds numbers like bricks, always joined by na (and): zomi na moko, ten and one, is eleven. Tens are ntuku, hundreds nkama, thousands nkoto. That’s all.
Watch how it works
11zominamoko
25ntukumibalenamitano
134nkamanantukumisatonaminei
2026nkotomibalenantukumibalenamotoba
The tens
20ntuku mibale
30ntuku misato
40ntuku minei
50ntuku mitano
60ntuku motoba
70ntuku sambo
80ntuku mwambe
90ntuku libwa
Hundred, thousand, a million
100nkama
200nkama mibale
500nkama mitano
1 000nkoto
10 000nkoto zomi
1 000 000milio
Order and quantities
ya libosofirst
ya mibalesecond
ya misatothird
ya sukalast
ndambohalf
mokea little
mingimany, a lot
nyonsoall
Type a number, or let chance pick one: the page writes it in Lingala and says it out loud, brick by brick.
nkamamibalenantukumineinamisato
You can count. Keep going!
Numbers come back everywhere: market prices, ages, Bible verses. Find them in the dictionary with the rest of the vocabulary.
Open the dictionary