COUNTING INTRODUCTION
Counting in Japanese in some ways is a little easier than counting in english, yet coming from the very metric west can lead to some difficulties.
In Japanese, in order to examine how a number is said, as with english, you must take into account each magnitude of number.
For example, 3756 in english is "three-thousand", "seven-hundred", "fifty", "six". In Japanese, it would be "three-thousands",
"seven-hundreds", "five-tens", and "six".
You might have noticed that in English there are rules to be followed for multiples of ten. We first change the number slightly and add "ty" to the end.
For Japanese numbers multiples of ten, there is no modification to the first number, and "ten" is added, rather than "ty". Therefore,
3756 is "sanzen", "nanahyaku", "gojuu", "roku" (forgive the romanji). In the cases of multiples of ten, there are no exceptions to this rule.
For the multiples of 100, there are unfortunately exceptions, and the best thing to do is to simply learn them. These exceptions will again be
covered in the lesson on 100-1000. The exception is due to the japanese word for 100 (hyaku) beginning with "hya". For some preceding ending sounds, this
hya needs to be changed. Here is the variations of the multiples of 100.
| 100 | "HYAKU" |
| 200 | "NI-HYAKU" |
| 300 | "SAN-BYAKU" |
| 400 | "YON-HYAKU" |
| 500 | "GO-HYAKU" |
| 600 | "RO-PPYAKU" |
| 700 | "NANA-HYAKU" |
| 800 | "HA-PPYAKU" |
| 900 | "KYUU-HYAKU" |
you might notice that for 3, the HYA becomes a BYA. For 6 and for 8, the second syllable is dropped, and HYA is replaced with PPYA.
For the multiples of 1000, there are also exceptions, and they are different than those for HYAKU. The word for thousand in japanese is SEN, and
for some numbers, the SEN must become ZEN or SSEN.
| 1000 | "ISSEN" OR "SEN" |
| 2000 | "NI-SEN" |
| 3000 | "SAN-ZEN" |
| 4000 | "YON-SEN" |
| 5000 | "GO-SEN" |
| 6000 | "ROKU-SEN" |
| 7000 | "NANA-SEN" |
| 8000 | "HA-SSEN" |
| 9000 | "KYUU-SEN"
finally, there are no exceptions to multiples of 10000. However, the fact that 10000 rather than 1000 is a base for counting in Japanese can lead to
confusion for the english speaker for numbers over 10000. The best thing to do is to set your mind away from the english
manner of handling numbers, and view it fresh. For example, 2000000 is "two-millions" in english, but in japanese, it is "two-
hundreds-tenthousands".
These lessons will not cover numbers so high in much depth, and will not cover numbers larger than 99,999,999.
When counting in general in Japanese, there also needs to be given a classifier for what type of object is being counted.
In english, we might count how many pens we have to give a group before an exam, and in doing so would merely count numbers.
We might say "I have 19 pens." In Japanese, that 19 needs to have a classifier that corresponds to pen. In this case,
the classifier "HON" which counts long, cylindrical objects, is used. So, the same sentence would be more like "I
have 19 cylindrical objects, pens." To the english speaker, this may seem strange. However, to learn to count in Japanse,
you must learn and accept this way of counting. Now, enjoy your lessons!
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