Japanese Numbers 1–100,000: Learn the Pattern, Not the List

Japanese numbers are more systematic than they first appear.
Instead of memorising every number, you can learn the basic numbers and place values, then build most of the rest.

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Japanese numbers 1–100,000 chart
How to use this Japanese numbers chart
A few pronunciation changes
Try building larger numbers
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Japanese numbers 1–100,000 chart

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This chart is arranged by place value, so you can see the pattern across tens, hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands.

How to use this Japanese numbers chart

Start with two small sets of building blocks: the basic numbers and the main place values.

1. Learn the basic numbers

Number	Japanese
1	ichi
2	ni
3	san
4	yon (also shi)
5	go
6	roku
7	nana (also shichi)
8	hachi
9	kyuu (also ku)
10	juu

2. Learn the main place values

Place value	Japanese unit
10	juu (十)
100	hyaku (百)
1,000	sen (千)
10,000	man (万)

3. Combine them

For many numbers, the pattern works almost like multiplication.

Number	Japanese	Pattern
20	nijuu	2 × 10
30	sanjuu	3 × 10
200	nihyaku	2 × 100
2,000	nisen	2 × 1,000
20,000	niman	2 × 10,000

This is why the chart is arranged by place value rather than as one long list. You can follow the same basic number across tens, hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands, and see how the pattern changes.

A few pronunciation changes

The system is regular, but a few common numbers change pronunciation.

Number	Japanese
300	sanbyaku
600	roppyaku
800	happyaku
3,000	sanzen
8,000	hassen

These are useful exceptions to memorise. Apart from these pronunciation changes, the same basic pattern continues.

Try building larger numbers

Once the pattern makes sense, larger numbers can be broken into smaller parts.

Number	Japanese
25	nijuu-go
340	sanbyaku-yonjuu
2,500	nisen-gohyaku
12,000	ichiman-nisen
35,000	sanman-gosen
100,000	juuman

Japanese numbers become much easier once you stop treating them as separate words and start seeing them as combinations of a small set of building blocks.