Numbers
There are two primary counting systems in Japanese, the native Japanese numbers, and the imported Chinese numbers. There are certain times when you use each system. For now, though, we can just learn the standard counting, which uses mostly Chinese readings and a few Japanese readings.
| Japanese | Hiragana | English |
|---|---|---|
| ゼロ・零 | ぜろ・れい | zero |
| 一 | いち | one |
| 二 | に | two |
| 三 | さん | three |
| 四 | よん・し | four |
| 五 | ご | five |
| 六 | ろく | six |
| 七 | なな・しち | seven |
| 八 | はち | eight |
| 九 | きゅう・く | nine |
| 十 | じゅう | ten |
| 百 | ひゃく | hundred |
| 千 | せん | thousand |
| 万 | まん | ten thousand |
To create more specific numbers, you just stick the big numbers (10+) to small numbers (1-9)!
For example,
じゅう＋さん＝じゅうさん＝１３
ひゃく＋はち＝ひゃくはち＝１０８
Add a smaller number before a bigger number to get that multiple:
に＋じゅう＝にじゅう＝２０
きゅう＋ひゃく＝きゅうひゃく＝９００
Then, you can combine the two!
なな＋じゅう＋さん＝ななじゅうさん＝７３
よん＋ひゃく＋きゅう＋じゅう＋いち＝よんひゃくきゅうじゅういち＝４９１
Now, to be honest, Japanese people overwhelmingly use Arabic numerals (the ones we use) for numbers bigger than ten, and even then, they usually use Arabic numerals. However, knowing these words is very useful, because the way Japanese thinks about numbers is a bit different than the way English does.
In addition to the Chinese readings above, I will provide the traditional counting system if you are interested in learning them (they will come in handy later!) on the flashcard page.
Telling Time
To tell time in Japanese, we use the suffixes ～じ (時) and ～ふん (分) to mark the hour and minute, respectively. There are quite a few occurrences of sound changes, so I have made a chart below that shows all of the readings in full:
| 時・じ (o’clock) | 分・ふん (minutes) | |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 一時・いちじ | 一分・いっぷん |
| 2 | 二時・にじ | 二分・にふん |
| 3 | 三時・さんじ | 三分・さんぷん |
| 4 | 四時・よじ | 四分・よんふん |
| 5 | 五時・ごじ | 五分・ごふん |
| 6 | 六時・ろくじ | 六分・ろっぷん |
| 7 | 七時・しちじ | 七分・ななふん |
| 8 | 八時・はちじ | 八分・はっぷん |
| 9 | 九時・くじ | 九分・きゅうふん |
| 10 | 十時・じゅうじ | 十分・じゅうふん |
| 11 | 十一時・じゅういちじ | 十一分・じゅういっぷん |
| 12 | 十二時・じゅうにじ | 十二分・じゅうにふん |
You can continue the minutes pattern all the way to sixty.
Now, we can combine words in the o’clock column with the words in the minutes column to create a time on a clock!
ごじ＋はっぷん＝ごじはっぷん＝５：０８
くじ＋ななふん＝くじななふん＝９：０７
じゅうにじ＋よんふん＝じゅうにじよんふん＝１２：０４
ろくじ＋にじゅういっぷん＝ろくじにじゅういっぷん＝６：２１
More Words
There are a few more words that can make our lives easier.
今・いま：now.
半・はん：literally “half,” we can use はん instead of さんじゅうふん to mean “half past.”
- Example: 一時半・いちじはん：half past one o’clock.
～午前・ごぜん：A.M. Place this word before the time to indicate it is before noon.
- Example: 午前七時・ごぜんしちじ：seven o’clock A.M.
～午後・ごご：P.M. Place this word before the time to indicate it is after noon.
- Example: 午後十一時半・ごごじゅういちはん：eleven thirty P.M.
～時間・じかん：Used to indicate a number of hours, as opposed to 時・じ, which indicates a time on a clock. Can also be used in conjunction with ～ふん for hours + minutes
- Example: 二時間・にじかん：two hours
- Example: 九時間六分・くじかんろっぷん：nine hours and six minutes
Up Next
The next page is flashcards for this section. After that, we’ll get started with the first real chapter content from the Genki textbook and cover some elementary grammar points that are not covered yet in Genki. In my experience, it is beneficial to know how sentences in Japanese actually work, and how they are fundamentally different from English sentences. 頑張って！