Combining Numbers To Make Bigger Numbers
“In Vegas, I got into a long argument with the man at the roulette wheel over what I considered to be an odd number.” - Steven Wright
So, you know 1-10, 100, 1000, and 10000. That’s nice, but… you can only do so much with that. Right now, I’m going to teach you how to use those mere 13 number words and turn them into a whopping million+ number words. How’s that for efficiency?
Doing this is quite simple (with a few minor hiccups/exceptions, but you’ll go over them as we go along). First, let’s start with the simplest thing, something you already know, and turn it into something you didn’t know you already knew.
- いち
- に
- さん
- し／よん *
- ご
- ろく
- しち／なな *
- はち
- きゅう
- じゅう
You know 1-10. If you know 1-10, you can combine them to create bigger numbers. It’s really easy, and it actually makes a lot of sense when you see it. Let’s start with ten (make sure you know that じゅう is ten, this is important!).
10 = じゅう
11 = じゅういち
The number ten should be all good. The number eleven… I bet you’ll understand as soon as you read it out loud. It’s basically 10 (じゅう) and 1 (いち) put together to form one word. Let’s try another.
12 = じゅうに
All we did was add 2 (に) to 10 (じゅう). Do you see what’s going on here now? Why don’t you try a few.
15 =
じゅうご
19 =
じゅうきゅう
13 =
じゅうさん
That’s pretty easy, right? Now, what about the “exception” numbers, like 4 and 7? They have two ways of saying them, so how should you read them? The hard part here is that often times they’re interchangeable, where it doesn’t really matter which one you use and when. I’m not saying there aren’t times where only one version of the number 4 or 7 can be used (because there are plenty of those too), but when it comes to just counting or saying numbers, it really doesn’t matter all that much which one you choose. In general, I’d tend to go with the first version listed of each number when just counting (and not counting any things), but really it’s up to you. For example:
4 – Both し and よん are fine, though I tend to lean towards し when counting
7 – Both しち and なな are fine, though I tend to lean towards しち when counting
14 – Can be either じゅうし or じゅうよん, as long as you’re just counting numbers
… and so on.
Basically, I’m just saying you don’t have to worry about it yet… at least until we start talking about counting things, like dogs, bottles, and desks. When you’re counting the number and only the number, you can do either. Just make sure you know both versions of the numbers going forward (because we’ll be using both later on).
So, you should be able to count from 1-19 now. Let’s see if you can do it. Try to count in order. There’s a list below with answers for all of them if you get stuck. Can you do it?
1 =
いち
2 =
に
3 =
さん
4 =
し／よん
5 =
ご
6 =
ろく
7 =
しち／なな
8 =
はち
9 =
きゅう／く
10 =
じゅう
11 =
じゅういち
12 =
じゅうに
13 =
じゅうさん
14 =
じゅうし／じゅうよん
15 =
じゅうご
16 =
じゅうろく
17 =
じゅうしち
18 =
じゅうはち
19 =
じゅうきゅう
20 =
You’re about to find out…