Japan is a bit like a lone man who thinks the world is not yet ready to accept him. For a long time, the country was hiding from the rest of the world and only at the beginning of the 20th century began to establish friendly relations with other states. From that moment on, interest in everything Japanese has increased significantly. Cuisine, traditions, holidays, mentality, clothing - all this is of interest to the public. Many Europeans are trying to comprehend the basics of the Japanese language. The first thing that causes problems is the numerals, namely the Japanese numbers.
Features of Japanese numerals
Japanese numerals are a special combination of numbers, which consists of the Chinese and Japanese counting systems. Due to the fact that the Chinese system is duplicated, Japanese hieroglyphic numerals have a double reading: OH (on) and KUN (kun).
Usually in Japan they use Arabic numbers, but you can also find hieroglyphs. Especially often they come across in the menu of restaurants at ryokans (traditional Japanese hotels). In addition, they resort to hieroglyphs if you need to write the text "vertically". Arabic is used for horizontal writing.numbers.
The inhabitants of the Land of the Rising Sun have two counting systems: their own (the account is kept only up to 10) and borrowed (Chinese). The rules of use are quite simple: the Chinese account is always used with suffixes, Japanese numbers can exist independently.
1 to 10
To get to know Japanese numbers better, you need to know how they are written and read. The table below shows Japanese numerals from 1 to 10 with different pronunciations:
| Number | Hieroglyph | OH (Chinese pronunciation) | KUN (Japanese pronunciation) |
| 1. | 一 | Ichi | Hitotsu |
| 2. | 二 | Nei | Futatsu |
| 3. | 三 | Sun | Mitsu |
| 4. | 四 | Shi | Yotsu |
| 5. | 五 | Go | Itsutsu |
| 6. | 六 | Roku | Mutsu |
| 7. | 七 | Shichi | Nanatsu |
| 8. | 八 | Hachi | Yatsu |
| 9. | 九 | Koo | Kokonotsu |
| 10. | 十 | Ju | Too |
As you can see from the presented material, numbers in Japan have a double name. Moreover, the pronunciation may differ in different regions. For example, the number 8 can be pronounced as "hachi" or "hachi" or "hashi".
There are also two different names for Chinese numbers 4, 7 and 9:
- 4 - "Yong".
- 7 - "Nana".
- 9 - Kyu.
Interesting to know
In Japan, the numbers 4 and 9 are considered unlucky. Four is pronounced "shi", which is similar to the Japanese word for "death". Therefore, very often the pronunciation of "shi" is changed to "yon". Nine, in turn, is consonant with the word "suffering", which is pronounced simply as "ku". Therefore, you can often hear a modification of the pronunciation of the number 9.
In modern Japanese, all numbers except 4 and 7 have a Chinese pronunciation (that is, they are read by "onnu"). But in the names of the months, even they are pronounced with "ON".
10 to 20
Japanese numbers that come after ten are formed mainly by a combination of numbers. For example, if you need to say 18, then you should take 10 (ju) and say it in combination with 8 (hachi). The result will be 18 - juhachi. All other numbers of this order are formed in the same way. The result isthe following combinations:
11.十一 – Juichi.
12.十二 – Juni.
13.十三 – Jusan.
14.十四 – Juyeon.
15.十五 – Jugo.
16.十六 – Juroku.
17.十七 – Junana.
18.十八 – Juhachi.
19.十九 – Jukuu.
20.二十 – Niju.
Tens are formed by adding the desired multiplier to the word "ten", for example "sanju" (30) or "niju" (20).
More than a hundred
Japanese numbers are formed by adding one numeral to another. Even hundreds are formed in this way. 100 (百) is pronounced "hyaku" in Japanese. To form the numerals 300, 400, etc., it is necessary to pronounce the name of the corresponding figure from the first table before “hyaku”. Here are some examples:
- 300 (三百) – Sanhyaku.
- 400 (四百) – Yonhyaku.
- 500 (五百) – Gohyaku.
No one has any difficulty with this question. The most interesting thing begins when you need to pronounce a three-digit number, which is not in the examples. For example, 125. In theory, it is clear that all the numerals that make up the number must be added together, but in practice many are lost. 125 in Japanese sounds like "hyakuninjugo". If you write the number using kanji (hieroglyphs), then you get 百二十五. That is, 125 is the sum of the digits: 100+20+5.
The numbers 1000 and 10000 are denoted as:
- 千 – Sen (one thousand).
- 万 – Man (ten thousand).
The numbers are formed in the same way as the previous groups of numbers. For example, 1367Japanese numbers translated into Russian will sound like "sen (1000) sanhyaku (300) rokujunan (67)". In this way, you can safely form numbers until you need to say a million.
Perhaps this is an exception to the rule. If six-digit numbers are formed by combining the number of previous orders ("juni" or "niju"), then a million is formed using the numbers 100 and 10,000. Accordingly, 1000000 will sound like "Hyakuman".
First - third pay
Japanese numerals are very easy to remember. And if you learn the numbers from 1 to 12, then you can not bother with remembering the months of the year. In Japan, they do not have names. Just add the word "gatsu" to the number that indicates the number of the month. For example, January will sound like "Ichigatsu", which literally means "first month". Pay close attention to the fourth and seventh months. When it comes to months, then the "exceptional" ones - April and July - are pronounced "in Chinese", that is, with the "on" pronunciation. The result will be:
- 四月 - Shigatsu (April).
- 七月 - Shichigatsu (July).
Interest in Japan is inevitable. Traditions, language, mentality, culture - all this attracts the eyes of the public. After all, there, in a country where the sun wakes up earlier, everything is different. Even the numbers - and those are not the same as everyone else. That's what makes Japan interesting. Difficult but interesting.
