Learn Basic Japanese

Learn Basic Japanese - Numbers

What would life be without numbers? Love them or hate them, we need numbers to function in our daily lives. The same is true as you learn basic Japanese. One way to learn basic Japanese is to practice using Japanese numbers as you go about your daily tasks such as shopping.

Japanese numbers from 1 - 10 are very straight forward and easy to put to memory. However, there are a few patterns and exceptions with the following numbers:

Pattern of "TEN":
The Japanese numbers from 11 - 19 all have "juu" in front of the word for the numbers 1 - 9. So, it's literally (10) + (1) = 11 and (10) + (2) = 12, etc.. For example 11 = juuichi (juu = 10 and ichi = 1), 12 = juuni (juu = 10 and ni = 2), 13 = juusan, 15 = juugo, 16 = juuroku, and 18 = juuhachi.

Exceptions:
Note that the numbers 4, 7 and 9 have a different word to represent them. For example, 14 = juushi and not juuyon; 17 = juushichi and not juunana and 19 = juuku and not juukyuu.

Pattern of [(n) x (10)]:
The letter (n) represents the Japanese numbers from 2 - 9. The Japanese numbers 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 all have the pattern of (n)x(10). For example, 20 = nijuu [(2)x(10)], 30 = sanjuu [(3)x(10)], 40 = yonjuu [(4)x(10)], 50 = gojuu...and so on.

Pattern of [(n) x TEN + (n)]:
The letter (n) represents the Japanese numbers from 2 - 9. The Japanese numbers 21-29,31-39,41-49,...91-99 all have the pattern of [(n)x(10)+(n)]. For example, 21 = nijuuichi [(2)x(10)+(1)], 22 = nijuuni [(2)x(10)+(2)], 37 = sanjuunana [(3)x(10)+(7)], 46 = yonjuuroku, 58 = gojuuhachi, 69 = rokujuukyuu, 84 = hachijuuyon and 93 = kyuujuusan and so on.

It's all quite logical. Once you memorize the first 10 numbers, the rest will come naturally as you to learn basic Japanese.

Learn Basic Japanese