Basic numbers: Numbers

💬 Japanese builds numbers by stacking parts, so 十 is "ten" and 十一 is literally 十 + 一. The same pattern keeps going: 十二, 十三, and so on.

💬 百 means 100 by itself, not just "a hundred" inside a longer phrase. Japanese builds bigger numbers in blocks, so 三百 is 300 and 百一 is 101.

💬 十四 is usually said じゅうよん in everyday use; じゅうし exists but is less common because it can sound like other words. The same preference for よん often shows up in other 4 numbers too.

💬 十七 is often said じゅうなな in everyday speech, though じゅうしち also exists. Japanese often prefers なな over しち when it helps avoid confusion.

💬 十九 is usually said じゅうきゅう, using the common reading きゅう for 9. That same きゅう shows up in 九十 too.

💬 二十 is a special case: it's said にじゅう, not "two-ten" in English word order. Japanese puts the bigger unit after the smaller digit here, and keeps doing that in 二十二, 三十, and 四十.

💬 Japanese makes 22 by stacking 二 + 十 + 二, literally "two tens and two." You can reuse the same pattern for other numbers like 三十四 and 五十六.

💬 四十 is usually said よんじゅう, not しじゅう. For 4 in bigger numbers, Japanese often prefers the よん reading.

💬 千 means 1,000, and Japanese keeps building numbers in chunks from there: 二千 is 2,000 and 三千五百 is 3,500. Notice you don't need a word for "and" inside the number.

💬 百一 is literally 百 + 一, "one hundred one." Japanese usually says numbers straight through without an extra word like English "and," so also 百二十 for 120.

💬 万 means 10,000, which is a big difference from English. Japanese groups large numbers in units of 10,000, so 十万 is 100,000 and 百万 is 1,000,000.

💬 億 means 100,000,000, and Japanese keeps counting large numbers by 10,000-sized steps. So 一億 is 100 million, not one billion.