It’s a rather advanced question, by the way.
We all know that in a written manner, the Japanese (and also Chinese) write down the number as we do: dividing zeros every three repetitions.
1,000 | 100,000 | 1,000,000 and so on
But they read it by dividing the zeros every FOUR repetitions.
10,000 is read “one ten thousand” (ichi-man)
100,000 is read “ten of ten thousand” (juu-man)
1,000,000 is read “a hundred of ten thousand” (hyaku-man)
​
Seriously no matter how far I’ve been with my Japanese ability, I just can’t make any sense on how to quickly think of a way to convert the way we count numbers, to the Japanese way of counting numbers.
This brings difficulty especially when you’re in a situation where having a grasp of the number is the main topic of the whole conversation (talking about a price of something, talking about salary, etc.).
“the price of the house is 4,200-man”
(My brain would be like: wait wait.. “man” is four zeros. Add the two zeros from the 4,200, that makes it six zeros. Okay, a million.. Add the 42, okay it’s 42 million! But wait why is everybody already continuing to the next topic??)
So if anybody has any great tips on quickly converting the counting system, I would really appreciate that. Thank you very much.
14 comments
I also struggle with this and my solution is a bit backwards imo
but what I do is I always think of 1 man = 100 USD (ik the exchange rate is decently bit lower but irl I mainly use numbers for money so I’m always thinking how much I’m spending in USD anyways – other than maybe like video views or people)
so if someone said to me 4200 man then I’d be like oh ok 420000 USD then back to yen add 2 more 0s
it sounds a bit like a lot of thinking but It’s kinda automatic process for me at this point
I’m not reccomending my method really tho 😂 but it makes sense to me lol
At some point tho I think you just start thinking in the japanese system. Like when it comes to conversation most people who are first learning think of ofwhat they want to say in their native language and then translates to Japanese. Eventually, for true fluency imo you need to start thinking about Japanese organically and not translating from whatever ur native language(s) is… tho I’m certainly no where near it but I can’t think of anything to help much than eventually u get used to it??
For example I’m from the US, and when I moved to Japan a LOT of the measurements changed. In the beginning I would try to convert km to miles or liters to gallons, celsisus to farenheight, kg to pounds, etc., etc but eventually after enough exposure I got used to the metric system and now people can say 10cm and I have a general idea what that is, I don’t need to think of like ohh 1 inch is like 2.3 cm so that’d be like 6 or 7 inches anymore. I just know now and tbh Idk how to explain it other than I just do 🤷🤷
I think it’ll just come with time basically is what I’m saying lol tho Is stil haven’t figured out the money ahahah
125万 = 12, 5×10 000 = 1 250 000.
76万 = 7, 6×10 000 = 760 000.
1938万 = 193, 8×10 000 = 19 380 000.
72億 = 7, 2×100 000 000 = 7 200 000 000.
3千 = 3×1000 = 3000.
I just changed my language on YouTube to Japanese in order to make myself more familiar with the system. Skipping the math, I now just know that
10万 is 100 000 (one hundred thousand)
100万 is 1 000 000 (one million)
1000万 is 10 000 000 (ten million)
and so on. those are the most common bigger numbers you’ll find anyway. So just remembering the upper three numbers is enough.
You say that we all know they write down the number as we do… originally, it was in 4 places, not like our 3.
It was converted to 3 after 1945 to be more in line with the western world.
Yep. This is still incredibly difficult for me too
You count digits every time. It isn’t fun.
I think the best way is to not convert the numbers at all, but to learn to understand them as they are. Just like how we aim to understand the language without having to translate it.
In my Japanese class a long time ago, my teacher actually taught us to put commas after every 4 numbers.
1,0000 1万
10,0000 10万
100,0000 100万
1000,0000 1000万
1,0000,0000 1億 etc.
When I first came to Japan, Kobukuro was very popular, so a mnemonic device for me was the song, “[Million Films](https://youtu.be/1diDCVniY3w).” The lyrics of the chorus are,
100万枚撮りのフィルムでも
撮りきれない程の想い出を
君と二人 未来へと焼きつけていけたら良いな
So if I forgot, I always used the song title “Million Films” and the lyrics 100万枚撮りのフィルム to quickly remind myself that a million=100万
But like others said, you will adjust with time.
The way you write ten of ten thousand hurts my brain lol
It’s just ten, ten thousands.
Instead of thinking in ten thousands. Imagine countering ten thousand yen notes.
Its all math, in English you think of “one hundred X one thousand” and that is one hundred thousand.
In Japanese it is “ten X ten thousand” and that is one hundred thousand.
It is just a different way to think about things, just like putting the verb at the end of the thought– you will get used to it before you know it, just embrace it 🙂
______
P.S. many Japanese schools have started teaching to put commas in the Japanese mindset aka 1,0000– to controversial opinion of Japanese themselves.
To be honest it’s not natural to me still after many years. But for money I think you could almost think of “man en” as a unit
While I agree with other commenters who have stated that the ultimate goal is to understand the numbers directly instead of translating them in your head, it takes time to get used to that.
Something I have found useful as a temporary solution is to use the term *myriad*, which, in addition to its figurative meaning of “a lot,” which is how it generally gets used nowadays, it also literally means “ten thousand.” So, when you’re looking at 十万, instead of going “ok, that’s ten ten thousands, so that’s a hundred thousand,” you can go, “that’s ten myriad.” That gets you a step closer to thinking of it in the Japanese way while you’re still in the phase when you need to translate Japanese in your head to understand it.
Practice, repetition and keeping a good and open attitude.
I found it the best way is to just live in Japan. Then you use it so much, you get used to it. You don’t try to translate or convert it, you just know which is which on smaller scales because you probably get paid in the 10x万+ range so you use that there and you mostly use 万 talking about rent and other things. Just repetition and practice.
Also put your youtube to Japanese, youtube displays big and small numbers alike, and you can just kinda get the jist of it when you look at someome with 1300万 subscribers, you know it’s not over a 100mil because there’s only a few of those channels, so it scales down to the 10s of millions and so on. Views and subacribers are your best friend when you tryna get used to the numbers. You will never get a quick way of dealing with them if you’re converting and shit every time.
I have no idea where do you live but in my country we have a 20k bill and such, so I can basically just say money related shit in Japanese even when I’m home amd practice that way. Would be harder if it was like a 100 bucks lol.
I’ve certainly ended up in entirely English speaking conversations with a friend/coworker in Japan where we throw in things like “it cost juu man” because it’s somehow easier than converting the number to english. Like code-switching but only for big numbers.