Common to all languages and cultures out there, number systems is an important lesson that you need to learn. Without learning the Japanese number system, it would be difficult for learners to continue further.
In this article, you will be able to learn how to count numbers in Japanese.
The Japanese Number System
English | Japanese |
|---|---|
One | Ichi (一) |
Two | Ni (二) |
Three | San (三) |
Four | Shi / Yon (四) |
Five | Go (五) |
Six | Roku (六) |
Seven | Shichi / Nana (七) |
Eight | Hachi (八) |
Nine | Kyuu (九) |
Ten | Juu (十) |
Note that the Japanese characters for these numbers are the same with the numbers in Chinese. Since the Japanese borrowed some Kanji from the Chinese language.
Also for numbers four and seven, they added a more colloquial term (yon and nana) to make it easier to distinguish from other numbers. This is very important when telling time, since shi and shichi sound similar, there might be cases when the listeners might not catch what the speaker said. Because of this, the new casual words are used.
Tens, Hundreds, Thousands, Ten Thousands
For the Japanese language, their numbers are not specified by zeros, instead there is a particular word that is added to the number to specify tens, hundreds, thousands.
Tens | Juu (十) |
Hundreds | Hyaku (百) |
Thousands | (千) |
Now, here comes the hard part. For the English number system, we stop after three zeroes, and then we add a comma.
1 – one
10 – ten
100 – one hundred
1,000 – one thousand
10,000 – ten thousand
For the Japanese language they have another word for ten thousands:
Ten thousand | man (万) |
This is how the number systems look when they are being used altogether:
25 | ni jyuu go (二十五) – this states that there are two “tens” and 5 “ones |
38 | san jyuu hachi (三十八) – three “tens” and 8 “ones” |
483 | yon hyaku hachi jyuu san (四百八十三) – 4 “hundreds”, 8 “tens” and 3 “ones” |
722 | nana hyaku ni jyuu ni (七百二十二) |
1,294 | sen ni hyaku kyuu juu yon (千二百九十四) |
4,560 | yon sen go hyaku roku juu (四千五百六十) |
14,882 | ichi man yon sen hachi hyaku hachi juu ni (一万四千八百八十二) |
26,712 | ni man roku sen nana hyaku juu ni (二万六千七百十二) |
103,484 | juu man san zen yon hyaku hachi juu yon (十万三千四百八十四) |
Some notable rules though for special numbers:
300 | sanbyaku （さんびゃく） |
600 | roppyaku (ろっぴゃく) |
800 | happyaku (はっぴゃく) |
1000 | sen or issen (せん、いっせん) |
3000 | sanzen (さんぜん) |
8000 | hassen (はっせん) |
These special pronunciations were made to make it easier and smoother to speak. Since they flow easily from the tongue.
Conclusion
That’s all for now, keep practicing in order to get familiar with the basic Japanese number system.
Challenge yourself! What is 253,756 in Japanese? Comment your answers below!
