PG054

Numbers

Arabie numerals are usually used in Japan but sometimes, especially on menus, you will find the following Chinese characters (kanji) used:

The Japanese have a commonly used system of hand gestures for counting. Learn these gestures for the Cardinal numbers and you can communicate without words. Japanese has two counting systems, a native Japanese system, which only goes as high as TO’, and a system borrowed from Chinese. This is not as confusing as it might sound at first, the rules concerning when to use the separate Systems being very elear. As a generał rule, Chinese numerals combine with ‘counters’ (see page 111), while Japanese numerals can be used in isolation when you don’t know the ‘counter’ for an object:

There are two or three different ways to say the Cardinal Chinese numbers, 4, 7, and 9. In the following table, the recommended spoken version is listed first.

Numbers 109

Number	Chinese	Japanese
1	ichi —•	hitotsu * o
2	ni H	futatsu H o
3	san ul	mittsu H o
4	yon/shi	yottsu W o
5	goli. j	itsutsu K o
6	roku / Ń	muttsu 7\ o
7	nana/shichi	nanatsu^C o
8	hachi A	yattsu A O
9	kyu/ku jL	kokonotsu Ji
10	ja-y	tO -f*

Notice that numbers above 10 are generally madę by a combination of the numbers from one to 10. To say 16 for example, you take the word for 10 (ja) and combine it with 6 (roku) to make 16 or juroku. There are special words for 100 hyaku, 1000 sen, and 10,000 man. Since one million is 100 x 10,000, it becomes hyakuman.

Number
11	juichi
12	juni
13	jusan
14	juyon
15	jugo
16	juroku
17	jushichi
18	juhachi
19	juku
20	niju
30	sanju
40	yonju

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