Counting Up To 100
“Back of ninety-nine out of one-hundred assertions that a thing cannot be done is nothing but the unwillingness to do it.” - William Feather
In the time it took you to count up to 19, I’m going to now teach you how to count to 100. It’s surprisingly easy.
So, you know that じゅう is 10. How many tens does it take to get twenty? It takes “Two Tens” to make “twenty.”
10 = じゅう
20 = にじゅう
30 = さんじゅう
40 = よんじゅう (this one should use よん)
50 = ごじゅう
60 = ろくじゅう
70 = ななじゅう (this one should use なな)
80 = はちじゅう
90 = きゅうじゅう
100 = ひゃく
Just looking at this long list, I imagine you have figured out the pattern. 50 consists of “five tens” which means it is ご(five)じゅう(ten) = ごじゅう. Now, there are a couple of exceptions in this list that use the second pronunciation of a couple of the numbers (40 and 70), so you’ll have to remember that and learn that (we’ll practice), but other than that, everything is very straight forward.
Now, to get out of the tens, we’ll need to look back at the last page and what you learned there. Let’s review really quick.
19 = じゅうきゅう
15 = じゅうご
12 = じゅうに
Now, if you wanted to make these numbers 29, 35, and 42, how would you imagine you’d do it? All you have to do is take what you learned above, and add an extra number to the beginning to make the 10 (じゅう) part into a 20, a 30, and a 40… then you just continue with the rest of the number.
29 = に(2)じゅう(10)きゅう(9) = にじゅうきゅう
35 = さんじゅうご
42 = よんじゅうに
See how these two parts fit so nicely together? Why don’t you practice and see if you can translate these numbers into Japanese.
16 =
じゅうろく
66 =
ろくじゅうろく
5 =
ご
95 =
きゅうじゅうご
4 =
し
44 =
よんじゅうし／よんじゅうよん
38 =
さんじゅうはち
99 =
きゅうじゅうきゅう
100 =
ひゃく
Now, how about translating Japanese numbers into English?
じゅうはち=
18
きゅうじゅういち =
91
さんじゅうご =
35
いち =
1
ななじゅうよん =
74
ななじゅうろく =
76
はちじゅう =
80
さんじゅうなな =
37
ひゃく =
100
Great, if you can do all of this, you’re in pretty good shape. One thing I want to note, though, just in case you were worried…
Right now, when you look at a simple number like “73″ reading it is quite the hiragana ordeal (ななじゅうさん). That’s a lot for one number! Lucky for you, numbers aren’t actually written in hiragana… like, ever. You’ll see 73 in English style numbers (73) or, slightly less commonly, in kanji (七十三). So, numbers don’t have to be as long and hard to write as I’m making them out to be (so far). By doing it in hiragana (right now) it’s helping you to learn the pronunciation of the numbers as well as the numbers themselves. Since you don’t know the kanji for all the numbers (yet) hiragana is just going to have to do. In most future lessons, the numbers will be written out in English, since that’s the most common way of doing things in Japan too. But, you should still read them in Japanese, even if they’re written out in English numbering!