Lesson 3.4: Money, Japan and You

One thing you're gonna learn about Japan very quick is that getting around there requires a lot of knowledge of money numbers, along with having lots of traveling-around-buying-useless-crap-you-want money-which I always ration into my own trips and travels. With that in mind, let's begin learning the basic ways to talk about the bigger chunks of change you'll be using in your travels.

百《ひゃく》、二百《にひゃく》、三百《さんびゃく》、四百《よんひゃく》、五百《ごひゃく》、六百《ろっぴゃく》、七百《ななひゃく》、八百《はっぴゃく》、九百《きゅうひゃく》(Can't read it?)

[100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700 ,800, 900]
This kinda money'll probably buy you a meal at a fast food joint or a neat little toy from some vending machine, but knowing the average person traveling to Japan what you desire will undoubtedly climb into the 1000+ or even 10,000+ yen range. Here are the kind of numbers you'll most likely come across as you roam around the various stores.



千《せん》、二千《にせん》、三千《さんぜん》、四千《よんせん》、五千《ごせん》、六千《ろくせん》、七千《ななせん》、八千《はっせん》、九千《きゅうせん》

[1000, 2000, 3000, 4000, 5000, 6000, 7000, 8000, 9000]



This is the most common range of numbers you'll see when you're shopping around the cities, and the only things I know more expensive than 9000 are specialty goods, collectors editions of stuff and so on(the stuff I know a lot of you want, but might not be able to afford without donating a kidney or first born child). Now, before we go higher up the ranks of spending, I think it's time for a bit of a break to review the money system, as well as how to recite our larger chunks of change.

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)