How do I say the number which is greater than or equal to 1000 in Japanese?
Important 4 digits in Japanese
In Japanese, we need to study 4 important digits that are used relatively often :
千
sen
from a thousand
万
man
from ten thousand
億
oku
from a hundred million
兆
chou
from a trilion
And as you may have noticed, there are some gaps between Japanese and English digits.
See this list below :
as you can see,
English : The digit changes every 3 times and it starts from “thousand”
Japanese : The digit changes every 4 times and it starts from 万 (man : ten thousand)
So, be careful when counting in Japanese.
千 (sen) : from 1000
The digit 千 has 3 pronunciations :
千
sen
zen
ssen
The basic sound is
千
sen
The pronunciation is chosen by the number attached to it.
But as there are only 2 numbers that change the pronunciation, it’s better to remember these 2 numbers :
千
sen : the rest
zen : 3
ssen : 8
So, it becomes
3000
san zen
8000
ha ssen
Pay attention to 8000 as the pronunciation of 8 changes as well.
and there is a very important thing :
1000
sen
As you can see, we don’t need to read 1.
sen means 1000.
And here’s the list :
万 (man) : from ten thousand
There is only one tricky thing about the digit 万 (man).
1000万
sen man
i ssen man
10,000,000
As you can see, with 万 (man), 1000 is not just “sen” but also “i ssen” (when intensified).
And here’s the list :
億 (oku) : from one hundred million
As with 万 (man), there is one thing we must be careful about with 億 (oku) :
1000億
i ssen oku
sen oku
100,000,000,000
Here, with 億 (oku), 1000 has two pronunciations and “i ssen oku” is used when we want to intensify it.
And here’s the list :
兆 (chou) : from one trillion
LIke 千 (sen), 兆 has more than 1 pronunciation :
兆
chou
cchou
The basic sound is “chou”.
And the numbers that make “cchou” sound are
1
8
X0
*Note : X0 means like 10, 20, 30…
And so they become like :
１兆
i cchou
one trillion
８兆
ha cchou
eight trillion
１０兆
ju cchou
ten trillion
And just like 1000万 and 1000億, 1000 with 兆 (chou) has two pronunciations.
1000兆
sen chou
i ssen chou
quadrillion
And here’s the list :
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