Big Numbers

Numbers Get Much Bigger Than 100…

Let’s keep stacking this knowledge and teach you how to ask how much something costs! Being able to ask how much something costs is integral to shopping. Imagine not knowing how much things cost! You could accidently walk up to the cash register with a $50 tube of toothpaste. Or at least the yen equivalent.

Vocabulary

Kanji	Kana	English
辞書	じしょ	Dictionary
	Tシャツ	T-Shirt
本	ほん	Book
帽子	ぼうし	Hat
飴	あめ	Candy
鞄	かばん	Bag
雑誌	ざっし	Magazine
	いくら	How much?

How Much?

The word いくら translates as “how much” in English and when used in the AはBです pattern you insert it just like you would insert なん, just before です。For example Aはいくらです is asking how much something is. You can combine it with other words you’ve learned so far to make quite a variety of fun phrases. Let’s say you pick something up off a table, you could shout to the shop-keep これはいくらですか. Or maybe there’s a really nice T-shirt hanging behind the shop-keep そのTシャツはいくらですか. See what I mean? Easy to use!

Examples:

Kanji	Kana	English
	これはいくらですか。	How much is this?
	そのバッグはいくらですか	How much is that bag?
あのお皿はいくらですか。本	あのおさらはいくらですか。	How much are those plates?

Side Note: Notice how in that last example “plates” is plural. This is because Japanese doesn’t differentiate between singular and plural forms. You’ll just need to observe the situation to determine if something should be translated as singular or plural. The above example without context can just as easily be translated as “How much is that plate over there?”

The Currency of Japan

The currency of Japan is the yen. For a quick conversion, think of it as 100 yen per 1 dollar. The actual rate is always in flux, but this is an easy and fast way to visualize how much something like a 3,000-yen purse really costs. In Japanese, yen is actually pronounced as えん. The Kanji for yen is 円 and will be seen written as such in basically every instance. Definitely take some time to learn this one!

To 100, and Beyond!

Now that you’ve been given the information that 100 yen is 1 dollar you can probably put it together that you need to be able to say bigger numbers when you go out shopping. Don’t fret about it though, big numbers in Japanese follow the same patterns as small numbers; they’re just big. Let’s start small with the number 202, you’re essentially saying “two + hundred + two.” If you want to say some random number like 3547, the same methods learned in Episode 1 apply here as well, giving you “three + thousand + five + hundred + four + ten + seven.”

Japanese numbers up to 9,999 will behave the same way as English, but after that point, things become slightly different. Below is a chart giving you the pieces needed to communicate the numbers 100-9,999.

１００−９０００

Kanji	Kana	English
百	ひゃく	100
二百	にひゃく	200
三百	さんびゃく	300
四百	よんひゃく	400
五百	ごひゃく	500
六百	ろっぴゃく	600
七百	ななひゃく	700
八百	はっぴゃく	800
九百	きゅうひゃく	900
千	せん	1000
二千	にせん	2000
三千	さんぜん	3000
四千	よんせん	4000
五千	ごせん	5000
六千	ろくせん	6000
七千	ななせん	7000
八千	はっせん	8000
九千	きゅうせん	9000

Side Note: 300, 600, 800, 3000, and 8000 exhibit sound changes to make them easier to pronounce, so be aware of that as you’re memorizing your numbers.

When you hit 10,000, instead of saying “ten + thousand,” you have to say “one + ten-thousand.” That’s because 10000 is its own unit like hundred and thousand is. This unit is まん．

１０００−９９９９９９

Kanji	Kana	English
一万	いちまん	10,000
二万	にまん	20,000
三万	さんまん	30,000
四万	よんまん	40,000
五万	ごまん	50,000
六万	ろくまん	60,000
七万	ななまん	70,000
八万	はちまん	80,000
九万	きゅうまん	90,000
十万	じゅうまん	100,000
九十万	きゅうじゅうまん	900,000
九十万九千九百九十九	きゅうじゅうまんきゅうせんきゅうひゃくきゅうじゅうきゅう	999,999

Side Note: As you may be able to tell, writing numbers with kanji gets really long and messy past a certain point. For this reason, numbers are generally just written with numerals followed by any counters necessary. For example: ５００００円.

Before You Move On…

…Understand how to ask how much something costs and understand how yen works. Also be able to communicate using numbers up to 999,999 making sure you also understand the irregularities that come along with certain numbers.