How Much Is This?

“Whoever said money can’t buy happiness simply didn’t know where to go shopping.” - Bo Derek

One of the most obvious ways to use numbers is with money. This is a good opportunity to learn the grammar point いくら (how much) and then use all the numbers you just learned (while learning about the Japanese money system). First, though, you have to learn a single word.

いくら = How Much

This word will get you pretty far. You’ll mostly end up using it to ask how much something is (if it’s not already clearly marked, of course). Let’s go through the noun grammar you’ve learned and work our way up from simple (plain です) to more complicated (これ, それ, and あれ).

いくらですか？　＝　How much is it?

This is the most basic example of this. “How much is it?” You could simply hold an item up to a store clerk and ask this. いくらですか？

Now, if you wanted to get a little more complicated and fancy sounding (which you do), then you could add これ, それ, and あれ to it (which you learned in the last chapter). This of course also uses the AはB pattern (which you learned a few chapters ago), and uses pretty much everything else you’ve learned up until now too. Let’s take a look.

これ　は　いくら　ですか？　＝　How much is this?

Perhaps you’ve picked up an apple and are showing it to the store clerk. You want to know how much this thing in your hand is. You’d use a sentence like this. Of course, you could just ask how much the apples are, too.

りんご　は　いくら　ですか？　＝　How much are the apples? / As for the apples, how much are they?

And, of course, you can talk about things that are in the possession of the person you’re talking to.

それ　は　いくら　ですか？　＝　How much is that?

And also ask about things that are away from both of you. You might need to specify what it is you’re pointing to when doing this, depending on how far away it is!

あれ　は　いくら　ですか？　＝　How much is that over there?

Let’s take a look at a few different situations. see if you can ask the いくら question. I’ll answer, and you translate.

Pretend you’re at a grocery store. You’re in the water aisle, and want to know how much water is. How would you ask how much water is if you had it in your hand?

Answer 1 →

Answer 2 →

Either one would be okay – it’s just up to you in terms of which one you like more.

Now let’s say you’re at a pet store. You want to know how much the cat is. What would you ask?

Answer →

The cat isn’t a thing, so you’d want to make sure to call it a cat and not a “this.” You wouldn’t want to (well, you could, but it doesn’t seem nice) say これ は いくら ですか about a cat because it’s a living thing. これ, それ, and あれ often refer to non living things. Cats are too awesome to be things.

Now that you know how to ask the question, let’s learn how someone might answer it. Let’s learn about Japanese money (yen) to be able to do that.

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