Japanese Numbers: How to count one to a trillion?

The numbers from 0-10 are the most essential. Once you get this, you’ll be able to share your telephone number with your Japanese friends, plus they form the core of all other Japanese numbers!

Counting from ten to nineteen in Japanese is actually much easier than it is in English! You’ll see why in the table below. Can you spot the rule in the table below? (To save space, we’ll write kanji horizontally.)

Did you see the rule? It’s as simple as this:

Now let’s see how to say all the two-digit numbers. We’ll start with the multiples of 10 again. Can you figure out the rules behind the table below?

Pretty simple, right? Just put the number of 10s before じゅう (transcribed jū)!

And to form the numbers in between, you can just add the number from 1-9 at the end, like we did in the 10-19 section above:

In Japanese, you can count hundreds using the word ひゃく (transcribed hyaku, meaning “100”). Here are the words for the multiples of 100:

You can create the numbers in between the multiple of 100 just by adding the words for the two-digit number at the end.

The last of our basic numbers is せん (transcribed sen, meaning “thousand”), and it can be counted the same way!

Let’s look at a few final examples with numbers in between the 1000s:

The Japanese word 万 (transcribed man) represents the number 10,000. You can count up to 1000 万 (transcribed man) before you need to use a new unit word, so by adding this one word, you’ll be able to count up to 99,999,999!

Let’s first look at the numbers 10,000 - 90,000.

After 90,000, we continue counting 10s, 100s, and 1000s of 万 (transcribed man). Let’s look at some example numbers:

Remember, that if there are numbers in the 1000s, 100s, 10s, or 1s place, they’ll come after まん (transcribed man)!

Now can you figure out how to say 99,999,999? Take a deep breath and say…

Did you get it right? Well done!

Are you still breathing? Here’s the last stretch! We have two more unit words to learn: 億 (transcribed oku, meaning “100,000,000”) and 兆 (transcribed chō, meaning “1,000,000,000”). Because we now know the general construction and rules of Japanese big numbers, we will simply add a digit to each.

To read a negative number in Japanesse, simply add マイナス (transcribed mainasu, meaning “minus”) at the beginning.

Pretty easy, right?

In Japanese, the decimal point is read as てん (transcribed ten), and is followed by a series of single digit numbers like this:

When 0 comes before the decimal point, it’s commonly pronounced as れい (transcribed rei):

Please note that the pronunciations of いち (transcribed ichi, meaning “one”) and はち (transcribed hachi, meaning “eight”) change when they’re used before てん (transcribed ten):

• いってんご

  Transcription: itten go

  Translation: 1.5
• はってんきゅう

  Transcription: hatten kyū

  Translation: 8.9

In Japanese we follow this formula. Notice that the denominator comes first!

The word ぶん (transcribed bun) (分 in kanji) means “to divide.” So よんぶん (transcribed yon bun) in the example above means, roughly, “something divided into four.” This must be followed by the particle の (transcribed no) before the number of “fourths” can be given.

Here are a couple of more examples:

• さんぶんのに

  Transcription: san bun no ni

  Translation: two-thirds (2/3)
• いちとはちぶんのなな

  Transcription: ichi to hachi bun no nana

  Translation: one and seven-eighths (1 7/8)

When reading a Japanese phone number out loud, you’ll usually use の (transcribed no) in place of a hyphen. Notice that we do this in writing and in the pronunciation. For example:

Here are some other things to notice:

1. To keep overall rhythm, single-syllable numbers such as 2 (transcribed ni)and 5 (transcribed go) are often pronounced with a long vowel as in “nii” and “goo,” respectively. When writing in hiragana or romaji, however, don’t spell them with long vowels.

2. 4 and 9 are often pronounced as よん (transcribed yon) and きゅう (transcribed kyū), respectively, since it’s more recognizable than single-syllable versions し (transcribed shi) and く (transcribed ku) in verbal communications.

3. 7 is better pronounced as なな (transcribed nana) because しち (transcribed shichi, meaning “seven”) and いち (transcribed ichi, meaning “one”) sound similar, especially when you are on the phone.

The Japanese multiplication table is called くく (transcribed kuku) because the last entry is 9 x 9. It starts with…

…and ends with…

Even though a Japanese unit of numbers consists of 4 digits, we still put a comma after every three zeros! This is a source of headache even for native Japanese speakers, who often have to count zeros to figure out how to read each big number.

But have no fear! Here’s a useful tip to quickly figure out how to read a big number in Japanese. It’s called the rule of “ せん (transcribed sen)・ ひゃく (transcribed hyaku)・ じゅう (transcribed jū)・ いち (transcribed ichi)”:

• The first comma indicates せん (transcribed 1,000, meaning “one thousand”)

• The second comma indicates ひゃくまん (transcribed 1,000,000, meaning “one million”)

• The third comma indicates じゅうおく (transcribed 1,000,000,000, meaning “one billion”)

• The fourth comma indicates いっちょう (transcribed 1,000,000,000,000, meaning “one trillion”)

So, as the number of commas increase by 1, the number preceding the unit decreases from せん to ひゃく to じゅう to いち. Hope this tip will take a bit of weight off your shoulders when reading big numbers in Japanese!

There are number jinxes in Japanese culture, just like in the English-speaking world!

🍀Lucky numbers:

• Traditionally, 8 has been considered lucky, partly because the shape of its kanji (八) suggests the ends (i.e., future outcomes) are expanding.

• Nowadays, however, many Japanese people consider 7 to be a lucky number as well!

😞Unlucky numbers:

• Some people try to avoid 4 because し (transcribed shi, meaning “four”) sounds the same as the word for “death” in Japanese: 死 (transcribed shi).

• Such people may also dislike 9 because く (transcribed ku) sounds similar to the word for “suffering.”