Lesson 3.3: The Numbers Game: Counting From 1-99 in Japanese

There are many things we learn as kids that, as we grow, we take for granted, one of those being the ability to count numbers.As I'm sure you can wrap your head around, this is also important in learning Japanese, so let's start with the numbers we learned when we were first in diapers, 1-10

一《いち》[1]、 二《に》[2]、 三《さん》[3]、 四《よん》[4]、 五《ご》[5]、 六《ろく》[6]、 七《なな》[7]、 八《はち》[8]、 九《きゅう》[9]、 十《じゅう》[10](Can't read it?)

To help you remember them in Japanese, try counting them on your hands(or anything that can amount to ten, at this point). When you feel you have them down solid, count these numbers in Japanese:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10


Did you count them well? You did? Very good! Once you have those down pat, learning numbers 11-99 is a snap.



Making them is as easy as 十[number]for 11-19(IE 十+八=the word for the number 18, 十八《じゅうはち》) and [number]十[number] beyond that up to 99(IE 四+十+二= the word for 42, 四十二《よんじゅうに》)

To see this in motion, observe these examples:

十三《じゅうさん》
[13]

五十《ごじゅう》
[50]<

九十八《きゅうじゅうはち》
[98]

Get the mechanics down and you'll know how to count up to 99 in Japanese in no time. Of course, as should be common knowledge by now, many things in Japan cost more than 99 yen. The question is, how much more?(short answer: a whole lot, and you'll some of see those numbers in detail next post)