Counting in Japanese is wonderfully regular — learn ten words and a couple of rules and you can say almost any number. Here's the whole system: 1–10, the tricky dual readings, how to build bigger numbers, the sound changes nobody warns you about, and the counters you'll meet everywhere.
These ten readings are the foundation of the entire system — every larger number is built from them. They use the on'yomi (Chinese-derived) readings, the ones you'll use for counting, prices, phone numbers and most everyday figures.
| # | Kanji | Hiragana | Romaji |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 一 | いち | ichi |
| 2 | 二 | に | ni |
| 3 | 三 | さん | san |
| 4 | 四 | し / よん | shi / yon |
| 5 | 五 | ご | go |
| 6 | 六 | ろく | roku |
| 7 | 七 | しち / なな | shichi / nana |
| 8 | 八 | はち | hachi |
| 9 | 九 | く / きゅう | ku / kyū |
| 10 | 十 | じゅう | jū |
The dual readings of 4, 7 and 9. These three numbers each have two readings, and choosing the right one matters. 四 can be shi or yon — but shi sounds the same as the word for "death", so yon is preferred almost everywhere. Likewise 七 is usually nana rather than shichi (which blurs with ichi), and 九 is usually kyū rather than ku (a homophone of "suffering"). When in doubt, yon, nana, kyū are the safe choices.
This is where Japanese gets satisfying. There are no new words for "eleven" or "twenty" — you literally say the maths. Ten-one is eleven. Two-ten is twenty. Two-ten-five is twenty-five. Read the kanji and you can almost see the arithmetic.
| # | Kanji | Romaji |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | 十一 | jūichi |
| 12 | 十二 | jūni |
| 13 | 十三 | jūsan |
| 14 | 十四 | jūyon |
| 15 | 十五 | jūgo |
| 16 | 十六 | jūroku |
| 17 | 十七 | jūnana |
| 18 | 十八 | jūhachi |
| 19 | 十九 | jūkyū |
| # | Kanji | Romaji |
|---|---|---|
| 10 | 十 | jū |
| 20 | 二十 | nijū |
| 30 | 三十 | sanjū |
| 40 | 四十 | yonjū |
| 50 | 五十 | gojū |
| 60 | 六十 | rokujū |
| 70 | 七十 | nanajū |
| 80 | 八十 | hachijū |
| 90 | 九十 | kyūjū |
So to say any two-digit number, stack (tens digit) + jū + (ones digit). 48 = yon-jū-hachi (四十八). 73 = nana-jū-san (七十三). 99 = kyū-jū-kyū (九十九). That's every number up to 99 from just the ten readings above.
One hundred is 百 (hyaku), and you build hundreds the same way: (digit) + hyaku. Mostly. A few combinations trigger sound changes — the consonant shifts to make the word easier to say. They're worth memorising as their own little set, because they catch everyone out.
| Value | Kanji | Romaji |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | 百 | hyaku |
| 200 | 二百 | nihyaku |
| 300 | 三百 | sanbyaku |
| 400 | 四百 | yonhyaku |
| 500 | 五百 | gohyaku |
| 600 | 六百 | roppyaku |
| 700 | 七百 | nanahyaku |
| 800 | 八百 | happyaku |
| 900 | 九百 | kyūhyaku |
The highlighted rows are the ones that change: 300 becomes sanbyaku, 600 becomes roppyaku, and 800 becomes happyaku. The rest follow the plain pattern.
One thousand is 千 (sen), with its own two small irregularities. After that, Japanese counts in units of ten thousand rather than thousand — this is the single biggest mental adjustment for English speakers.
| Value | Kanji | Romaji |
|---|---|---|
| 1,000 | 千 | sen |
| 2,000 | 二千 | nisen |
| 3,000 | 三千 | sanzen |
| 4,000 | 四千 | yonsen |
| 5,000 | 五千 | gosen |
| 6,000 | 六千 | rokusen |
| 7,000 | 七千 | nanasen |
| 8,000 | 八千 | hassen |
| 9,000 | 九千 | kyūsen |
The 10,000 hurdle. Japanese groups big numbers every four digits, not three. The unit 万 (man) means ten thousand, and it's always ichiman (一万) — never just "man". So 10,000 is ichiman, 50,000 is goman, and 100,000 is jūman (ten ten-thousands). A million is 百万 hyakuman — a hundred ten-thousands. Re-grouping by four digits feels strange at first, then becomes automatic.
Prices are where these numbers earn their keep — a menu, a price tag, a train fare. Japanese money is the yen, written 円 and read en (the ¥ symbol means the same thing). Because en starts with a vowel, it never triggers a sound change: you just say the number, then en. There are no cents — yen are always whole numbers — so a price is simply a number you already know how to build.
| Price | Kanji | Romaji |
|---|---|---|
| ¥100 | 百円 | hyaku-en |
| ¥500 | 五百円 | gohyaku-en |
| ¥1,000 | 千円 | sen-en |
| ¥1,500 | 千五百円 | sen-gohyaku-en |
| ¥5,000 | 五千円 | gosen-en |
| ¥10,000 | 一万円 | ichiman-en |
For an in-between price, read it left to right in the usual building-block way. 三千九百八十円 (¥3,980) is sanzen-kyūhyaku-hachijū-en — three-thousand, nine-hundred, eighty, yen. 一万二千八百円 (¥12,800) is ichiman-nisen-happyaku-en. The sound changes you already met carry straight over: 3,000 is still sanzen, 800 is still happyaku.
How much? — いくら. To ask a price, say いくらですか (ikura desu ka), "how much is it?" The answer comes back as a plain number plus en. Coins run ¥1, ¥5, ¥10, ¥50, ¥100, ¥500; notes are ¥1,000, ¥2,000 (rare), ¥5,000 and ¥10,000 — so once you can read up to ichiman, you can read any banknote in your hand.
Zero has three common forms. Zero (ゼロ) is the borrowed English word and is everywhere. Rei (零) is the formal Japanese reading, used in weather reports and formal contexts. And maru (丸, "circle") is read aloud for digits in phone numbers and codes, the way English speakers sometimes say "oh" for zero.
There's a second, native set of numbers used for counting general objects up to ten when no specific counter applies — and for ages of small children, servings, and many everyday tallies. You'll hear these constantly, so they're worth knowing alongside ichi-ni-san.
| # | Kanji | Hiragana | Romaji |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 一つ | ひとつ | hitotsu |
| 2 | 二つ | ふたつ | futatsu |
| 3 | 三つ | みっつ | mittsu |
| 4 | 四つ | よっつ | yottsu |
| 5 | 五つ | いつつ | itsutsu |
| 6 | 六つ | むっつ | muttsu |
| 7 | 七つ | ななつ | nanatsu |
| 8 | 八つ | やっつ | yattsu |
| 9 | 九つ | ここのつ | kokonotsu |
| 10 | 十 | とお | tō |
Past ten, this native set fades out and you return to the ichi/ni/san system with counters. But ひとつ (hitotsu) through とお (tō) are used daily — "one of these, please" in a shop is hitotsu kudasai.
Here's the part that surprises learners: in Japanese you usually can't just say "three" of something. You attach a counter — a small word chosen to match the shape or type of the thing being counted, a bit like English "two sheets of paper" or "three head of cattle", but for everything. The number, the counter, and sometimes a sound change all combine.
| Counter | Reading | Used for |
|---|---|---|
| 個 | ko | small general objects (the safe default) |
| 人 | nin | people — but 1 = hitori (ひとり), 2 = futari (ふたり) |
| 本 | hon | long thin things — pens, bottles, umbrellas |
| 枚 | mai | flat thin things — paper, plates, tickets, shirts |
| 匹 | hiki | small animals — cats, dogs, fish, insects |
| 回 | kai | times / number of occurrences |
| 歳 | sai | age in years |
| 円 | en | yen (money) |
The sound changes return. Counters that start with h behave just like hyaku did: 一本 is ippon (not ichi-hon), 三本 is sanbon, 六本 is roppon. The pattern — 1/6/8/10 doubling to a small tsu and 3 voicing the consonant — repeats across many counters, so learning it once with hon pays off everywhere. Don't try to memorise every counter at once; start with ko and nin, and add others as you meet them. For the full reading tables — every counter with its sound changes — see the dedicated Japanese counters guide.
Read the kana first. Every reading on this page is written in hiragana — so before the numbers click, the script needs to be second nature. The kana typing game shows you a character and asks you to type its romaji against the clock, turning that recall into a combo chase, with a mastery tracker that surfaces the kana you keep missing.
Put these numbers to work: learn to tell the time (just numbers plus 時 and 分) and the counters you'll meet everywhere. New to the scripts? Start with the hiragana chart & reading guide, pick up the angular script in the katakana guide, or see how the two compare in hiragana vs katakana.