Questions tagged [numbers]
数字. The various spoken and written forms of words and characters covering digits, numbers, numerals, including derived forms such as ordinals.
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Rules for slang of Japanese numbers
I often hear Japanese using a different method for saying a number like "248" as によんぱ — especially for highways and license plates.
While this one is easy to understand, there are others that I don'...
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When years are (or were) written using kanji numerals, what are the usual variants/options?
I believe that these days, years would be written almost always using western/Arabic numerals in either the Japanese era or Gregorian calendar.
But it must sometimes be written using the kanji ...
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When (or how) were simplified numbers in Japanese used e.g. mi = 3, na = 7, etc
There seems to be a cultural convention in Japanese that allows for "old" (simplified) versions of numbers to be used. An example of this would be the idol group 3776 which is known as "...
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What does 一人 mean in a sentence like this?
こちらは負傷者を一人抱えている
"We are carrying a wounded person alone"
or is it
"We have one wounded person?"
In the second case why 一人 is placed after 負傷者
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What is 18坪? (じゅうはち + つぼ = ?)
What is 18坪? (じゅうはち + つぼ = ?)
I found this sentence
１８坪の店内【てんない】は落【お】ち着【つ】いた雰囲気【ふんいき】で、壁面【へきめん】にはぐるりとＳＰ、ＬＰレコードなどが１万枚【いちまんまい】並【なら】ぶ
https://www.yomiuri.co.jp/culture/music/20220701-OYT1T50230
I did not ...
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A problem with numbers
I ask again today a question that will probably be completely trivial for those who know the language.
What is the difference between 一〇〇四六 and 一万四十六 ?
Or (I think the difference is the same, but I ...
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Is か(個)/ヶ a productive component in measure words (助数詞)?
I have only seen か(個/カ/ヶ) in か月、か年（五か年計画）、か国（六か国会議）、か所、か条.
Is it a productive component which can be used in making other new measure words?
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Is 77 ななじゅうなな or しちじゅうしち here?
One of the sentences I found in an online paper and put into my Anki deck is
77年前【ねんまえ】、原爆【げんばく】はなぜ長崎【ながさき】に落【お】とされたのか？
Why was the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki 77 years ago?
How is 77 read?
If I ...
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Number+counter when NOT used as an adverb
Following up from this question, I'm curious how Japanese people naturally describe the numbers of things when NOT used like an adverb. Do they still use 「thing + number + counter」, just like when ...
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All the ways of writing numbers
I couldn't find any sites where I could get a comprehensive list of possible number writing formats. My question is mainly about mixing and matching different ideas I've seen online.
For general, ...
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expressing fractions of people?
One pronounces "two people" as 二人【ふたり】, but what happens with "2.7 people"? Is the following reading of this sentence correct?
このうち[2.7]{にてんなな}人【にん】に1人【ひとり】が「重【おも】い荷物【にもつ】を背負【せお】...
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Is B2F, B1F, 1F, 2F, ... wasei-eigo?
While visiting Tokyo, I noticed that most levels were indicated by B2F, B1F, 1F, 2F, ... .
This doesn't look like the Romaji for -kai or -gai counter-words, which I assume would be chika ni-kai, ...
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Structure: thing を numeral (or numeral and counter) ください
My first question is, are counters always required when counting things? Can't I just slap a number in front of the noun? For example,「いちりんご」for one apple?
Secondly, in Lesson 5 of the Japanese For ...
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Is there a reason why numbers in Japanese are delimited into blocks of four?
As I understand, Japanese numbers are divided into blocks of four, so while we would think of the number 89123889 as 89,123,889, in Japan they would think of it as 8912,3889 (八千九百十二万三千八百八十九). So ...
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What is this 10^40 thing?
While checking out "正" (as in 正坐, specifically) I found that apparently one of the associated meaning would be 10^40 (i.e. 10 elevated at the 40th power).
Example -taken from Tangorin.com:
sei 【正】
...
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Is there any practical use of the word 正{せい} meaning 10^40 (ten thousand undecillion) ? Where did it come from? [duplicate]
I came across this definition of 正{せい} and I can't fathom what purpose such a large number (10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000) could serve, it looks strange to me that there is ...
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Random people names in Japanese? いちろう vs じろう vs さぶろうvs しろう
I'm just trying to learn Japanese. I ran into this. It is somewhat similar to what I've seen in English where we refer to random people as "Tom, Dick, and Harry" or Spanish where it is "...
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How do you read out numbers in scientific notation in Japanese?
For example, "5 * 10^80" would be said as "5 times 10 to the power of 80" in English. When translating to Japanese, would I translate all of these operations literally or is there ...
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Can 一つ be used as a motivation or pump-up phrase, like a kiai?
In the Rockman X4 manga, the Reploid military of the Repliforce rebels against humanity for independence after being falsely suspected of involvement in a city's destruction and ordered to turn in ...
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How often are numbers written in katakana?
I'm working on a program that convert numbers written in kanji into their arabic numbers counterparts and one of the text I've been given to test my program contains numbers written in katakana.
Most ...
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How is the number 0.01 spoken in Japanese?
How is the number 0.01 correctly spoken in Japanese?
I always thought it is ゼロてんゼロいち, but Google Translate and DeepL give different readings:
ゼロポイントゼロワン and ゼロ点ゼロ1
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Writing of decimal numbers with Kanji?
As an example, I want to write the decimal number 3.78
Is it common to write it as 三.七八 with Kanji?
What about 点? Is 三点七八 being used?
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In Demon Slayer, what are the "upper" and "lower" rank words and numbers? [duplicate]
The Demon Slayer show has these inscriptions on eyes that mean "upper 6" or "lower 12" etc. I haven't seen these "upper" and "lower" rank words in my studies. ...
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How many things? AとBがふたつ
「その上{うえ}には熱帯魚{ねったいぎょ}の水槽{すいそう}と何{なに}かのトロフィーがふたつのっている。」
This is a quote from "The wind-up bird and Tuesday's Women." How many fish tanks are there? How many trophies?
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gemination orthography
In this sentence
ミサイルは高【たか】さ100kmより低【ひく】い所【ところ】を東【ひがし】に750km飛【と】びました
The missile flew 750 kilometers east at a height lower than 100 kilometers.
appearing here
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/easy/...
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Why some tutorials teach writing Japanese numbers with Hiragana when they are actually written with Katakana (as on-yomi) in dictionaries?
I've just began learning some Kanji by looking-up how the numbers are written (and read) and suddenly bumped into confusion while watching some tutorials. I can hear the tutors pronouncing a number in ...
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How do you say "n out of m" with 目?
I'm writing an application which features pagination, and I would like to translate it into Japanese. I have the following English text:
Page 2 / 115
Before adding pagination, I would have ...
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Why is 二十歳 pronounced はたち?
二十歳 is a (to me) bizarre exception to the usual number+さい rule for discussing age. Is this rooted in 20 being the Japanese age of majority?
Added: To be more specific: why isn't it pronounced にじゅうさい ...
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Pronunciation of 800 / 八百
A Japanese textbook labels the pronunciation of 800 / 八百 as はっぴゃく, but elsewhere labels the pronunciation of 5,800 / 五千八百 as ごせんはっびゃく (emphases added). Should the first syllable of 百 be ぴゃ or びゃ ...
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Anything special with the number 20? [duplicate]
When counting, the number 20 is always quite different than other numbers. For example, you have 二十日 (はつか) and 二十歳 (はたち). Where does this difference come from? Is the number 20 special in Japan?
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Counting number of numbers
So I'm a Japanese learner just coming across how to count stuff like cars, or buildings, or bottles, or anything!
But I was just wondering, is there any counter to count numbers?
For example, you ...
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Kanji for ordinal numbers
I am beginning to study kanji and while reading a wiki I noticed only the ordinal numbers first (初), second (乙), and third (丙) are listed. Which brings me to ask whether there are symbols for fourth, ...
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What is the grammatical function of "が" in this context of counting people?
In an anime I've been watching, the protagonist goes to a village where one of his friends came from, where all the people in the village have the same hair color as his friend. (with "〇" ...
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How to read: the "~" (tilde) in "3~4 行"
How should I read the "~" mark that stands for range, as described in the title?
I saw this in the following sentence:
3~4行ごとに1行あけると読みやすい。
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Double/ordinal number expression [duplicate]
I would like to know the pronunciation for these following expressions:
i) (1, 2日), (6, 7日), (7, 8日), (8, 9日), (8, 10日), (18~20日)
ii) 第2日, 第3日, 第4日, 第5日, 第6日, 第7日, 第8日, 第9日, 第10日, 第20日
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Native or Sino Japanese numbers?
When listing steps (step 1, 2, 3, etc) do you use the Native Japanese counter or the Sino Japanese counter?
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Can I pronounce 十三日 as じゅうみっか?
I wonder if both prounciations of 十三日 are accepted?
じゅうさんにち
じゅうみっか
The reasons I am asking are these:
Windows IME seems to accept it
十四日 is pronouncecd as じゅうよっか, matching the pronunciation of 四日, ...
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Can I say na, nano, nanu as "seven" instead of nana?
On my kanji dictionary, below 七, there are several kunyomi among the common ones (nana, nanatsu), they are: na, nano, nanu; it's written that they are nouns themselves and it's the same for the other ...
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How to pronounce "2" in はやぶさ2 (spacecraft / mission)
I'm a beginner. I was watching news about JAXA's はやぶさ2 mission and I think it is pronounced はやぶさ つ. Can someone please confirm that "2" is pronounced "つ" and explain why.
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Different ways of enumeration
Japanese seems to have multiple ways of enumerating sequences. The basic one is ordinal numbers:
Arabic (Indian) numbers like in English: 1,2,3
classic Chinese numbers: 一、二、三 etc.
special legal ...
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Leaving away the 目 suffix for ordinal numbers
I've seen 「1ページ」 refer to "page 1" of e.g. a book. Wouldn't this technically mean "one page" and 「１ページ目」 be correct for "page 1"?
Is leaving away the 目 when referring to ...
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Non-universal counters and reading 7 and 9
Q1. Why are these counters like 人(にん), 日(にち) and 歳(さい) not universal?
人(にん) is impossible to be joined with 1(いち) or 2(に)?
日(にち) is impossible to be joined with 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 20 or ...
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Do we use odd day pronunciations outside of calendar ranges?
After reading @jkerian's comment in this post, I started thinking about this. Here's the comment in full:
On a side note, all days ending in '4' are also irregular, and use ~よっか. So the 14th is じゅう・...
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Are kanji typically used in times and dates?
Are kanji typically for numbers used in times and dates?
For example, would "七" and "十五" in the first sentence, and "九" and "三" in the second sentence be normal Japanese? (I'm aware that the ...
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Maths sentences: 足す and 掛ける
I noticed a lack of case marking particles in mathematical sentences:
１足す２は３である。
３掛ける４は１２である。
足す and 掛ける are verbs, does subject and object analysis apply to this? Do they take on the ...
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Regarding 7日, 9日, and counting 40, 70, 90
If you convert "ななにち" or "しちにち", you can get a letter "㏦(IDEOGRAPHIC TELEGRAPH SYMBOL FOR DAY SEVEN). Doing "きゅうにち" or "くにち", you can get a letter "㏨(IDEOGRAPHIC TELEGRAPH SYMBOL FOR DAY NINE). When I ...
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The day of the month
I've learned that the 1st to 10th day of the month is always read specially. However, when I converted these by using my computer typing "いちにち、ににち、さんにち、よんにち、ごにち、ろくにち、ななにち、はちにち、きゅうにち、じゅうにち、じゅうよんにち、...
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How to say 一〇年 in a sentence [duplicate]
I see this structure a lot:
まるで一〇年以上.......
What does the 一〇 mean and how do I pronounce it? Is it いちまる?
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What is the meaning of 七五三 in the sentence, 七五三のしゃしんです。
I was looking at the following sentence under a picture that I unfortunately cannot provide:
七五三のしゃしんです。
I believe the sentence reads "It's a picture of 753"... which doesn't make sense.
I know ...
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How would you refer to an apartment number?
I am currently working through みんなの日本語 (and still very new), in 第二課の会話 one character says "...408のサントスです。”, but in the audio the voice actor says what sounds like ”よんまるはちのサントスです".
I would say 408 as "...
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