Numbers and Counters

Counting things in Japanese is very easy in its basic form. If you want to master it, it can however be quite tricky, even though you will get along fine with the basic ways of counting.

There are two things that sets counting in Japanese apart from western languages. First of all, Japanese also have a word for 10.000, which confuses our brains a bit  when it comes to big numbers. For instance, one million would be said in japanese as hyaku man, which translates to hundred ten-thousand.

The second thing is that Japanese has specialized ways of counting different things. For instance a pen is counted with the words for long slender objects, while paper is counted with the words for flat objects.

Look at the examples below, it will probably make things a bit clearer.

Basic Numbers

0	零	rei /zero
1	一	ichi	10	十	juu	100	百	hyaku	1000	千	sen
2	二	ni	20	二十	nijuu	200	二百	nihyaku	2000	二千	nisen
3	三	san	30	三十	sanjuu	300	三百	sanbyaku	3000	三千	sanzen
4	四	shi/yon	40	四十	yonjuu	400	四百	yonhyaku	4000	四千	yonsen
5	五	go	50	五十	gojuu	500	五百	gohyaku	5000	五千	gosen
6	六	roku	60	六十	rokujuu	600	六百	roppyaku	6000	六千	rokusen
7	七	shichi/ nana	70	七十	nanajuu	700	七百	nanahyaku	7000	七千	nanasen
8	八	hachi	80	八十	hachijuu	800	八百	happyaku	8000	八千	hassen
9	九	ku/kyuu	90	九十	kyuujuu	900	九百	kyuuhyaku	9000	九千	kyuusen

10,000	万	man/ichiman
100,000	十万	juuman
1,000,000	百万	hyakuman
10,000,000	千万	senman/issenman
100,000,000	億	oku/ichioku
1,000,000,000	十億	juuoku

Numbers in Japanese are composed by adding the greater number to the left, and the smaller to the right. To change from ten to twenty, a two is added before the character meaning ten. Here are some examples:

二十四	ni juu yon	24
二百四十三	ni hyaku yon juu san	243
千二百	(is)sen ni hyaku	1200

Counters

In Japanese, you often add an ending to the number in order to show what you are counting. As a real new beginner, make sure you learn the general and people counters, and then take the others one by one later. Also refer to the List of Counters .

	General	People	Stamps	Pencils
1	hitotsu	hitori (一人)	ichimai (一枚)	ippon (一本)
2	futatsu	futari	nimai	nihon
3	mittsu	sannin	sanmai	sanbon
4	yottsu	yonnin	yomai	yonhon
5	itsutsu	gonin	gomai	gohon
6	muttsu	rokunin	rokumai	roppon
7	nanatsu	nananin	nanamai	nanahon
8	yattsu	hachinin	hachimai	happon
9	kokonotsu	kyuunin	kyuumai	kyuuhon
10	tou	juunin	juumai	juppon
?	ikutsu	nannin	nanmai	nanbon

	Books	Small animals	Floors
1	issatsu (一冊)	ippiki (一匹)	ikkai (一階)
2	nisatsu	nihiki	nikai
3	sansatsu	sanbiki	sangai
4	yonsatsu	yonhiki	yonkai
5	gosatsu	gohiki	gokai
6	rokusatsu	roppiki	rokkai
7	nanasatsu	nanahiki	nanakai
8	hassatsu	happiki	hakkai
9	kyuusatsu	kyuuhiki	kyuukai
10	juusatsu	juupiki	juukai
?	nansatsu	nanbiki	nankai

Ordinal Numbers (-me)

To count the order of things, you add the suffix -me to the end of the counter. Counting unspecific objects, the ordinal numbers are formed by adding -banme to the ordinary numbers.

一番目	１ばんめ	ichibanme	first
二番目	２ばんめ	nibanme	second
百番目	100ばんめ	hyakubanme	the houndredth

But you can also count the order using the specific counters for each type of object by adding -me to the end of the counter. This is illustrated in the following table:

一枚目	１まいめ	ichimaime	the first (thing thing)
一匹目	１っぴきめ	ippikime	the first (small animal)

Ordinal Numbers (dai-)

A construct that sounds a bit more formal is the dai- prefix. If you add it to the beginning of a word it will also mark that it is at a specific order. It also sounds more related to big things, such as property or big machines.

第一ターミナルで会いましょう
daiichi ta-minaru de aimashou.
Let's meet at terminal one. (at an airport)

マクドナルドの日本第一号店は１９８０に開店しました。
makudonarudo no nihon ichidai ten ha 1980 ni kaiten shimashita
The first McDonalds restaurant in Japan opened in 1980.

Links

• For a more extensive description of different counters, see List of Counters.
• Learn about numbers in the lesson Numbers

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This page is partly based on "Some Notes on Japanese Grammar" published for your personal use, with the kind permission of Keith Smillie (http://www.cs.ualberta.ca/~smillie/)