Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 1

60 1 ichi 10000 ichi-man 10 juu 100000 juu-man 100 hyaku 1000000 hyaku-man 1000 sen 10000000 sen-man So, ¥11111111 is sen hyaku juu ichi man sen hyaku juu ichi en . Also note the following sound changes. For 100’s ( hyaku ) h→ b 300 sanbyaku ; ?00 nanbyaku (how many hundreds?) h→ pp 600 roppyaku ; 800 happyaku For 1000’s ( sen ) s→z 3000 sanzen; ?000 nanzen (how many thousands?) s→ss 8000 hassen Japanese numbers are usually followed by a classifier, which indicates what is counted or numbered. Use of ‘bare’ numbers is rather limited (counting the number of push- ups, etc.) When counting things in Japanese, numbers are combined with classifiers that are conventionally used for the particular nouns being counted. This is similar to English expressions like “ten sheets of paper” (not ten papers), or “a loaf of bread” (not a bread.) Recall that the classifier for clock time is – ji , and grade in school is – nensei . We add three more in this lesson: – en for the Japanese currency, – doru for US currency, and – ban for numbers in order (first, second, etc.) Before – ji, 4, 7, and 9 are respectively yo , shichi , and ku . As shown in the chart below, before –en the number 4 is yo , and the numbers 7 and 9 before – en , doru and –ban are nana, and kyuu. The classifier -ban is also used for ranking (first place, second place, etc.) Ichi-ban is also used as an adverb to mean ‘most’ or ‘best.’ The pitch accent changes for the adverbial use (i CHI ban → i CHIBAN ) Ichi-ban jouzu most skillful Ichi-ban atarashii newest Ichiban ii daigaku the best college