Practice
“Counting & Numbers”
Numbers are one of those things that will take a while to learn. Why? Because there’s a lot of them. Simple as that. So, instead of coming down to remembering the words themselves, it comes down to remembering the patterns (and gaining enough experience to recognize and utilize them automatically). It’ll take some time, but you should have the foundations of the numbers by now. We’ll do some practice with numbers here on this page, but first we should look at sentences (don’t worry, not too many for this chapter).
Sentences
Make sure you can read all of these out loud and at a comparable speed before moving on to the next section. See if you can figure out the meanings of some of these sentences (I’d say ~75% of them) too, while you’re reading them, though don’t stress too much about this. We’ll go over the meanings soon.
a これ は いくら ですか？
a それ は ２千円です。
a やさい は いくら ですか？
a 七つ は いくら ですか？
a しゃしん は いくら ですか？・５０００えん です。
a あれ は ５３６えん です。
a 子犬 は いくら ですか？*
a 大人 は 大きい です。
*contains a kanji you don’t know. It’s 犬 (big + a speck = dog, because the speck next to the big man is his best friend, a dog). Think of this one as a primer for future kanji (we’ll be adding more primers in as you get better at this, because primers are a great way to learn small things that add up to bigger things later).
When you’re all done, it’s time to download and import these sentences into your “TextFugu Sentences” deck.
Study through these and learn the meanings of these sentences while continuing to practice saying them out loud. When Anki says you’re done, it’s time to practice some more numbers.
Numbers Quiz
I can’t cover every single number, but I will cover enough numbers here to make sure you understand the number-related patterns well enough. Don’t worry if it doesn’t come to you quickly. Take your time and decipher each number like a puzzle until you think you’ve figured it out. Then, check the answer to see if you were correct. If you weren’t, figure out why that is and then move on.
(Translate the English to Japanese).
3
さん
30
さんじゅう
36
さんじゅうろく
300
さんびゃく
360
さんびゃくろくじゅう
364
さんびゃくろくじゅうよん
3000
さんぜん
3600
さんぜんろっぴゃく
903
くひゃくさん
23
にじゅうさん
55
ごじゅうご
895
はっぴゃくくじゅうご
100
ひゃく
1000
いっせん
4433
よんせんよんひゃくさんじゅうさん
85
はちじゅうご
233
にひゃくさんじゅうさん
It probably wasn’t super easy, but I hope you managed your way through the numbers alright. You’ll keep seeing numbers (not like they’re going anywhere anytime soon) so over time you’ll come to understand them more intimately until they just become natural. Just make sure you don’t skip any chance to read or use a number, that way you’re always getting number experience.
Oh, and one lucky thing for you. Japanese usually use English numbers (1, 2, 3, 4, etc) when writing numbers, so you’ll rarely/never have to write this stuff out in hiragana. Some of these get really long, otherwise.
Before You Move On
- Make sure you have the vocab decks imported (basic numbers, kanji vocab).
- Make sure you have the kanji deck imported (kanji 3.2)
- Make sure you know the basic numbers (1-10, 100, 1000, 10,000)
- Make sure you understand the patterns involved in putting together numbers (at least somewhat). Most important is 1-100.
- Be able to say (out loud) and know the meaning of the Sentences Deck for this chapter.
- Go through the Numbers quiz and try to understand all of them (even if you don’t get them all right – numbers take a while, remember?).
When you’ve done all these things it’s time to move on to the next chapter!