We will now be concluding our journey in learning basic Japanese
numbers. Please be sure to have studied Lessons 9 and 10 before
proceeding as they are required for the understanding of this
lesson.
Learning 100 and above will combine your current knowledge about
Japanese numbers and introduce a few new number concepts. Please
don't fret over the big numbers, focus primarily within the
hundreds to thousands because in due time, you will grow accustomed
to the really big numbers.
In previous lessons we did not have to worry about how numbers were
presented because those numbers weren’t large enough to be of a
concern. In the United States, numbers are separated by thousands,
meaning 1000 becomes 1,000.
In other countries this may vary but large numbers usually are
separated for readability. In Japanese, numbers are separated by
thousands with a comma mainly in part to the western influence,
however pronunciation can get a little tricky. We have already
learned that 1 is ichi and have also learned 10 is Juu.
Taking this step one zero further to 100, one-hundred is pronounced
Hyaku. We’ve already learned how to count up to 99 and because of
this learning how to count to 999 will be fairly straight forward.
Just like when we counted 20 and 30, add the number you want in the
front of hyaku, for instance 2 would be ni to create nihyaku or
200. Let's look at the chart below.
| Number |
Romaji |
Japanese |
| 100 |
Hyaku |
百 |
| 200 |
Nihyaku |
二百 |
| 300 |
Sanbyaku |
三百 |
| 400 |
yonhyaku |
四百 |
| 500 |
Gohyaku |
五百 |
| 600 |
Roppyaku |
六百 |
| 700 |
Nanahyaku |
七百 |
| 800 |
Happyaku |
八百 |
| 900 |
Kyuuhyaku |
九百 |
Did you notice that 300 is pronounced sanbyaku instead of
sanhyaku?
The reasoning behind this involves some knowledge of advanced
Japanese linguistics patterns. This explanation is lengthy and will
be explained in an advanced lesson in due time. For now, please
recognize that 300 is sanbyaku and not sanhyaku.
Did you also notice that 600 and 800 don’t follow the typical
pattern? The reason behind the difference is elementary. The reason
is simply because pronouncing roku hyaku and hachi hyaku are very
difficult. To make it easier to pronounce, roppyaku and happyaku
were introduced. Thankfully these three changes are the only ones
which you need to worry about.
What about numbers like 101? This is very easy, in fact remember in
the previous lesson when we’ve discussed two + ten + five = 25?
Higher numbers follow the same pattern and for 101 it would be 100
+ 1 or rather hyaku ichi. If you would like to create 203 you would
do 2 + 100 + 3 (Ni Hiyaku San).
| Number |
Romaji |
Japanese |
| 101 |
Hyaku ichi |
百一 |
| 110 |
Hyaku juu |
百十 |
| 115 |
Hyaku juu go |
百十五 |
| 124 |
Hyaku ni juu yon |
八百二十四 |
| 200 |
Ni hyaku |
二百 |
| 333 |
Sanbyaku san juu san |
三百三十三 |
| 666 |
Roppyaku roku juu roku |
六百六十六 |
| 888 |
Happyaku hachi juu hachi |
八百八十八 |
| 999 |
Kyuuhyaku kyuu juu kyuu |
九百九十九 |
In Japanese, the thousands can get a little tricky because it tries
to adopt the western comma separator for thousands but yet the
logic of the actual numbers conflicts with it. Let’s first learn
how to count up to 10,000.
| Number |
Romaji |
Japanese |
| 1,000 |
Sen |
千 |
| 2,000 |
Ni Sen |
二千 |
| 3,000 |
San zen |
三千 |
| 4,000 |
Yon sen |
四千 |
| 5,000 |
Go sen |
五千 |
| 6,000 |
Roku sen |
六千 |
| 7,000 |
Nana sen |
七千 |
| 8,000 |
Hassen |
八千 |
| 9,000 |
Kyuu sen |
九千 |
This was straight forward but be sure you take special notice to
san zen as it is not san sen and that 8,000 is Hassen and not hachi
sen.
We have now reached a very big milestone, 10,000. These numbers are
easy to learn but there are some important things to take note
of.
First, to count 10,000 all the way to 99,999 all you need to do is
use the ten thousand unit ‘man’ and add ichi, ni, san… in front of
it. Please take a look at the chart below to understand this
better:
| Number |
Romaji |
Japanese |
| 10,000 |
Ichiman |
一万 |
| 20,000 |
Niman |
二万 |
| 30,000 |
Sanman |
三万 |
| 40,000 |
Yonman |
四万 |
| 50,000 |
Goman |
五万 |
| 60,000 |
Rokuman |
六万 |
| 70,000 |
Nanaman |
七万 |
| 80,000 |
Hachiman |
八万 |
| 90,000 |
Kyuuman |
九万 |
Did you notice the pattern? Counting this series was relatively
easy but what happens if you want to count 11,000?
How would you count it?
A) Ichi man sen
B) Ichi man ichi sen
C) Ichi man issen
The correct answer would be
C) ichi man issen as it is
easier to pronounce than any of the other. Whenever we add sen to
higher numbers we would want to use issen as a rule.
We’ve reached a fairly high number, this one will be very confusing
at first because now we’re about to mix western culture with
Japanese to create numbers that don’t make much sense.
To elaborate, let’s look at the following:
| Number |
Romaji |
Japanese |
| 1 |
Ichi |
一 |
| 10 |
Juu |
十 |
| 100 |
Hyaku |
百 |
| 1,000 |
Sen or Issen |
千 |
| 10,000 |
Ichi man |
一万 |
In English we say One + Hundred + Thousand to make one-hundred
thousand (100,000) but in Japanese, we would say 10 + 10,000 or juu
man.
Another way to imagine this would ten-ten-thousand. This is
confusing because 100,000 should actually be 10,0000 but it isn’t
because of the western adoption. Let’s take a look at the following
chart to reach 999,999,999.
| Number |
Romaji |
Japanese |
| 100,000 |
Juu man |
十万 |
| 111,111 |
Juuichi man issen hyaku juu ichi |
十一万一千百十一 |
| 200,000 |
Ni juu man |
二十万 |
| 300,000 |
San juu man |
三十万 |
| 400,000 |
Yon juu man |
四十万 |
| 500,000 |
Go juu man |
五十万 |
| 600,000 |
Roku juu man |
六十万 |
| 700,000 |
Nana juu man |
七十万 |
| 800,000 |
Hachi juu man |
八十万 |
| 888,888 |
Hachi juu hachi man hassen happyaku hachi juu hachi |
八十八万八千八百八十八 |
| 900,000 |
Kyuu juu man |
九十万 |
| 999,999 |
Kyuu juu kyuu man kyuu sen kyuu hyaku kyuu juu kyuu |
九十九万九千九百九十九 |
We’ve just learned that 100,000 is juu-man, and assuming that we
add another zero, what do you suppose this number will be?
If juu is 10 and hyaku is 100, just by adding one extra 0, then
one-million should be hyaku man.
After one-million we can use the same logic for ten-million to
create sen-man.
However, we cannot do this for one-hundred million. For that number
we’ll need to use
oku or
ichi oku. The usage of ichi oku and oku is the
same as earlier when we learned the difference between man and ichi
man. The unit of 100,000,000 is oku but the numbering is ichi
oku.
Let’s go over some examples.
| Number |
Romaji |
Japanese |
| 1,000,000 |
Hyaku man |
百万 |
| 10,000,000 |
Sen man |
千万 |
| 100,000,000 |
Ichi oku |
一億 |
| 200,000,000 |
Ni oku |
二億 |
| 300,000,000 |
San oku |
三億 |
| 400,000,000 |
Yon oku |
四億 |
| 500,000,000 |
Go oku |
五億 |
| 600,000,000 |
Roku oku |
六億 |
| 700,000,000 |
Nana oku |
七億 |
| 800,000,000 |
Hachi oku |
八億 |
| 900,000,000 |
Kyuu oku |
九億 |
| 999,999,999 |
Kyuu oku kyuu sen kyuu hyaku kyuu juu kyuu man kyuu sen kyuu
hyaku kyuu juu kyuu |
九億九千九百九十九万九千九百九十九 |
We’ve reached the very last segment for this lesson and almost the
end of our counting journey. These are possibly the last sets of
numbers you will ever need because there’s not much of a need to
count beyond a quadrillion in Japanese unless you become a
mathemetician or astrophysicist.
There are numbers that exist but they remain beyond the scope of
this lesson and necessity for this course. However if you’re
curious there are lessons outside of this one that go beyond a
quadrillion here.
| Number |
Romaji |
Japanese |
| 1,000,000,000 (1 billion) |
Ichi oku |
一億 |
| 10,000,000,000 (10 billion) |
Juu oku |
十億 |
| 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) |
Issen oku |
一千億 |
| 999,999,999,999 |
Kyuu sen kyuu hyaku kyuu juu kyuu oku kyuu sen kyuu hyaku kyuu
juu kyuu man kyuu sen kyuu hyaku kyuu juu kyuu |
九千九百九十九億九千九百九十九万九千九百九十九 |
To denote a trillion simply use ichou, nichou, sanchou, juuchou,
hyakuchou and senchou. Let’s look at our final table for examples:
| Number |
Romaji |
Japanese |
| 1,000,000,000,000 (1 trillion) |
Ichou |
一兆 |
| 2,000,000,000,000 (2 trillion) |
Nichou |
二兆 |
| 3,000,000,000,000 (3 trillion) |
Sanchou |
三兆 |
| 10,000,000,000,000 (10 trillion) |
Juuchou |
十兆 |
| 100,000,000,000,000 (100 trillion) |
Hyakuchou |
百兆 |
| 1000,000,000,000,000 (1000 trillion / quadrillion) |
Senchou |
千兆 |
The printable flashcards are given at the end of the article in
resources. Alternatively, you may use this link (PDF) to access
them.
These random number generators will help you improve your ability
to count in Japanese. Once you know the number, click NEXT and a
new number will appear for a limitless supply of numbers from 0 to
9trillion+. We have English to Japanese and Japanese to
English.
What is the Japanese Translation?
383061
NEXT →
Our Journey in learning basic Japanese numbers ends here. Learning
numbers isn’t always easy and it is genuinely one of the hardest
things to learn in Japanese. There are so many things to memorize
and yet it is required to really do anything in Japan. It is
because of this that we focused on numbers before conversational
Japanese.
But now rest well, because you’re now able to use numbers in
Japanese and that is one huge leap towards mastering the language.
