Counting in Japanese

The information used in this story can be referenced to https://cotoacademy.com/japanese_numbers/

• 100 hyaku （3-byaku/6, 8-ppyaku) 「ひゃく（3びゃく/6,8っぴゃく）」
• 1,000 sen (3-zen, 8-ssen ) 「せん（3ぜん/8っせん）」
• 10,000 man 「まん」 「万」

The Japanese number system increases with 10 as a base.

For example, 28 looks like this: ni — jyuu — hachi 「に じゅう はち」. For 10–100, leave out 1 (ichi) and say the numbers as follows:

• “12”: jyuu-ni (NOT ichi-jyuu ni) 「じゅう に」
• “157”: hyaku go-jyuu nana (NOT ichi-hyaku go-jyuu-nana) 「ひゃく ごじゅう なな」
• “1861” sen ha-ppyaku roku-jyuu ichi (NOT ichi sen ha-ppyaku roku-jyuu ichi) 「せん はっぴゃく ろくじゅう いち」

Similarly, for numbers that are larger than 10,000. For example, “18,257” is: ichi-man ha-ssen ni-hyaku go-jyuu nana 「いちまん はっせん にひゃく ごじゅう なな」.

For numbers greater than 10,000, 「万」（10,000) is used as one unit and thus, 100,000 is expressed as 10×10,000 (jyuu-man 「10万」). To put simply, just remember 4 zeros equal 「万」(man): “320,000” is san-jyuu-ni man. 「さんじゅう に まん」. They continue as follows:

• 10,000 ichi-man 「1万」
• 100,000 jyuu-man 「10万」
• 1,000,000 hyaku-man (one million) 「100万」
• 10,000,000 issen-man 「1000万」

In English the next unit corresponding to 1,000 x 1,000 is 1,000,000 (million). In Japanese the next unit corresponding to 10,000 x 10,000 is 100,000,000 (ichi-oku 「1億」/ hundred million).

Large Japanese numbers over 100,000,000

• 100,000,000 ichi-oku 「1億」
• 1,000,000,000 jyuu-oku ( one-billion) 「10億」
• 10,000,000,000 hyaku-oku 「100億」
  *You can remember 8 zeros equal「億」（oku)

The unit after oku is choo 「兆」: 100,000,000,000 i-cchoo 「1兆 」. Yes, 12 zeros are fairly hard to count! It is equivalent to 10¹⁶. This is “tera” in computer language.

For more information or if you want to learn more on how to use numbers in Japanese in a daily situation, do try out Coto Academy’s Japanese lessons!

Thank you! :)