What do you know about japanese numbers ?

MB+ - Japanese numbers are difficult enough to require its own section. I recommend you digest only a little bit of this section at a time because it's an awful lot of things to memorize.

Number 1 to 99

First of all, the number system is in units of four instead of three, which can make converting into English quite difficult. So a number such as 10,000,000 is actually split up as 1000,0000. However, thanks to the strong influence of the Western world and the standardization of numbers, when numbers are actually written, the split-off is three digits. Here are the first ten numbers.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十

いち に さん し／よん ご ろく しち／なな はち きゅう じゅう

Japanese numbers 1 to 10

Japanese numbers have be displayed in two way : kanji and hiragana. Normally, kanji is used when we are writing, in communication

As the chart indicates, 4 can either be 「し」 or 「よん」 and 7 can either be 「しち」 or 「なな」. Basically, both are acceptable up to 10. However, past ten, the reading is almost always 4(よん) and 7 (なな). In general, 「よん」 and 「なな」 are preferred over 「し」 and 「しち」 in most circumstances.

You can simply count from 1 to 99 with just these ten numbers. Japanese is easier than English in this respect because you do not have to memorize separate words such as "twenty" or "fifty". In Japanese, it's simply just "two ten" and "five ten".

三十一（さんじゅういち） = 31

五十四（ごじゅうよん）= 54

七十七（ななじゅうなな）= 77

二十（にじゅう） = 20

Notice that numbers are either always written in kanji or numerals because hiragana can get rather long and hard to decipher.



Numbers past 99

Here are the higher numbers:

Numerals 100 1,000 10,00010^8 10^12

漢字(kanji) 百 千 万 億 兆

ひらがな(hiragana) ひゃく せん まん おく ちょう

Notice how the numbers jumped four digits from 10^4 to 10^8 between 万(man) and 億 ( oku) ? That's because Japanese is divided into units of four. Once you get past 1万 (10,000), you start all over until you reach 9,999万, then it rotates to 1億 (100,000,000). By the way, 百(hecku) is 100 and 千(sen) is 1,000, but anything past that, and you need to attach a 1 so the rest of the units become 一万 (10^4)、一億 (10^8)、一兆 (10^12). You sometimes hear万( man) in price, when you buy something, 1万 ~ 94,33 USD. So knowledge of japanese numbers will help you profusely in daily life in Japan.



Now you can count up to 9,999,999,999,999,999 just by chaining the numbers same as before. This is where the problems start, however. Try saying 「いちちょう」、「ろくひゃく」、or 「さんせん」 really quickly, you'll notice it's difficult because of the repetition of similar consonant sounds. Therefore, Japanese people have decided to make it easier on themselves by pronouncing them as 「いっちょう」、「ろっぴゃく」、and 「さんぜん」. Unfortunately, it makes it all the harder for you to remember how to pronounce everything. Here are all the slight sound changes.



Numerals 漢字 ひらがな

300 三百 さんびゃく

600 六百 ろっぴゃく

800 八百 はっぴゃく

3000 三千 さんぜん

8000 八千 はっせん

10^12 一兆 いっちょう

四万三千七十六（よんまんさんぜんななじゅうろく）

43,076

七億六百二十四万九千二百二十二（ななおくろっぴゃくにじゅうよんまんきゅうせんにひゃくにじゅうに）

706,249,222

Not easy, right? But unfortunately, counter in Japanese is more and more difficult, counting way depends on length, thinkness,.. of objects.Day, time, animal,..... have the particular way to couting. To be honest, counters might be the most thing that'll make you want to quit learning Japanese. But do not worry, we will have the post about japanese counting to let you know.