Is there a methodology for forming the intuition to count in myriads?

Question

In my native language (not Japanese), the Sino-Xenic word for "ten thousand" (萬) is only used in historical contexts. In modern times, the Western way of counting in thousands is much preferred, and thousand separators are used. All that makes it quite difficult to intuitively discern large numbers in Japanese, because Japanese counts in myriads instead. After ten thousand (一万), it starts to become more difficult to immediately know what larger numbers, like say 二百五十万, actually mean, without taking some time to break them down.

So is there a methodology for practicing thinking in myriads in order to count more easily in Japanese?

Answer 1

This answer may not be very helpful but...

I agree that large numbers are very difficult to intuitively understand when you are used to counting in units of thousands. I still have difficulty with it even after years of study. The only way I found that helped was to memorize certain key numbers as reference points and drill them in English. Some of the key numbers I use as reference points are:

五十万 half a million
百万 one million
千万 ten million
一億 one hundred million
十億 one billion

I committed them to memory and revised/drilled them often until I knew them very well. When I come across a number, I calculate it using those reference points. For example, you gave 二百五十万. In my head, I would first see the 万 and then the 二百 and think "that is two million". Then I would add the 五十万 (half a million) to arrive at the answer 2.5 million.

I know it's probably not a very efficient way of doing it, but when you get used to it, you can calculate fairly quickly.

I have the most trouble with money because there is an additional mental calculation of how much a number in yen is valued in Dollars or Euro (or whatever other currency).