Counting To 1,000
“Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.” - Buddha
I have a feeling you’re starting to see a pattern, here. This should be getting easier, too.
You know the number for 100 (ひゃく), and you know how to get up to 100. Getting to 1,000 is almost the same thing, though there are a couple of quirks. Let’s take a look at the skeleton we’ll build around to get to 1,000.
100 = ひゃく
200 = にひゃく
300 = さんびゃく* This one is weird, check the pronunciation!
400 = よんひゃく* This one should use よん
500 = ごひゃく
600 = ろっぴゃく* This one is weird, check the pronunciation!
700 = ななひゃく* This one should use なな
800 = はっぴゃく* This one is weird, check the pronunciation!
900 = きゅうひゃく
There are quite a few exceptions in here, whether it’s weird pronunciation or one of the 4 / 7 ones. As the numbers get bigger, you’ll see some mutations that make the numbers easier to say. Sadly, these don’t follow any rules / things we’ve learned up until now – you just have to learn them and remember them. It’s not like someone wouldn’t understand you if you said ろくひゃく (600… well, not a correct 600) instead of ろっぴゃく, but you will have to learn the correct ways to say these at some point, so it might as well be now. What we’re going to do is practice like we practiced before, but I want you to focus on the weird ones when they come up. Also, this is a good thing to add to your language log to help you to remember what the “weird” ones are.
Before we practice, though, I need to make sure you understand the stuff above. It’s just like the 10′s numbers we learned, except instead of じゅう we have ひゃく. 400 = four one hundreds. In Japanese, that’s よんひゃく. Let’s take a look at a few numbers that aren’t divisible by 100.
130 = ひゃくさんじゅう
That’s the numbers 100 and 30 put together
135 = ひゃくさんじゅうご
That’s the numbers 100 and 35 put together
642 = ろっぴゃくよんじゅうに
That’s the numbers 600 and 42 put together. Note the pronunciation of the 600 part, it’s weird!
397 = さんびゃくきゅうじゅうなな
That’s the numbers 300 and 97 put together
The pattern is almost exactly the same as the pattern from the last page, just a little bit longer. Now I bet you can see why you shouldn’t use hiragana for everything – some really simple words get really really long. Kanji helps to solve this! Now it’s your turn to try. Change these numbers into Japanese!
799
ななひゃくきゅうじゅうきゅう
843
はっぴゃくよんじゅうさん
123
ひゃくにじゅうさん
105
ひゃくご
900
きゅうひゃく
600
ろっぴゃく
555
ごひゃくごじゅうご
372
さんびゃくななじゅうに
267
にひゃくろくじゅうなな
999
きゅうひゃくきゅうじゅうきゅう
Oof, I bet that was quite a mouthful to go through. Because 1,000-99,999 is a lot more of the same, I want to move right along to that. You’ll be able to practice everything we’ve done until now as well as some new stuff. After that, we’re putting these things into actual use.