22
votes
Accepted
How do I read 100°C in Japanese?
It is in a slightly different order in Japanese.
First comes Celsius, then the amount, and degrees at the end.
This would be one hundred degrees Celsius written out:
摂氏{せっし}100度{ど}
Fahrenheit for ...
20
votes
Accepted
What does 中3の25% exactly mean?
yes, you read 中 as ちゅう , and 中3 as ちゅうさん
中3 is a shorthand way of writing 中学校3年生 which is (Japanese) Junior High School 3rd graders or in other words, 9th graders.
so 中3の25% would be "25% of (...
19
votes
Accepted
What is the correct expression of 10/20, 20/30, 30/40 etc?
いちに, にさん, さんよん (or さんし), しご, ごろく, ろくしち (or ろくなな) and しちはち (or ななはち) are very common and handy expressions. はちきゅう is understood, but is relatively less common. We don't use よんご for some reason. They ...
14
votes
Accepted
How to read 24-hour clock format
You can read the time of day in 24-hour format using the pronunciation for the numbers 13–24 as for the numbers 1–10 followed by 時【じ】, e.g.
15:40 = 15時40分 = じゅうごじ よんじゅっぷん
19:20 = 19時20分 = じゅうくじ ...
13
votes
Accepted
Pronunciation of 800 / 八百
It should be always はっぴゃく [happyaku]. If they say はっびゃく [habbyaku], it’s a typo.
12
votes
How do I read 100°C in Japanese?
The reading depends on the situation. In a scientific or technical environment Chris's answer is 100% correct.
However, in conversational non-technical situations it is read differently.
When ...
11
votes
Accepted
Maths sentences: 足す and 掛ける
They are not grammatical phrases. We just read the symbols verbatim like:
[1]{いち} [+]{たす} [2]{に} [=]{は} [3]{さん}
It has nothing different than saying:
[1]{いち} [+]{プラス} [2]{に} [=]{イコール} [3]{さん}
...
11
votes
Accepted
The yomikata of 十三
Odd readings of 三: looking back in the history
I've read here and there that researchers think that the Chinese-derived reading さん was originally borrowed as さむ. This is based partly on the ...
11
votes
Listing things off: Using Hitotsu repeatedly
Using 一つ for every entry is actually an older and more traditional style of listing than using sequential numbers. Historically, Japan didn't have a tradition of assigning numbers to listed items; ...
10
votes
Why some tutorials teach writing Japanese numbers with Hiragana when they are actually written with Katakana (as on-yomi) in dictionaries?
Because it's a long tradition of kanji dictionaries, succeeded from the "first Japanese kanji dictionary" 漢和大字典.
Technically, kanji were foreign notions in Japanese; on'yomi was the pronunciation, ...
10
votes
Structure: thing を numeral (or numeral and counter) ください
Think like this:
All nouns in Japanese are uncountable. You can't count apples any more than you count water or light. Thus under Japanese grammar you always have to say "two 'objects' of apple", "...
10
votes
How do you read out numbers in scientific notation in Japanese?
5 * 10^80
I think it's read 「ごかけるじゅうのはちじゅうじょう」.
5×10⁸⁰ -- [5]{ご} [×]{かける} [10]{じゅう} の [⁸⁰]{はちじゅうじょう} (5[掛]{か}ける10の80[乗]{じょう})
9
votes
In conversation can you just say "万円です" or must you say "一万円です"?
No, 百円 is not the abbreviation of 一百円. The basic rules students learn at school are:
Always append 一【いち】 before 万, 億, 兆 and other larger four-digit grouping units
Do not append 一【いち】 before 十, 百 and ...
9
votes
Accepted
Hifumi vs Ichi Ni San
So do you know ひとつ, ふたつ, みっつ and so on, the "traditional Japanese" version of counting one to ten? "ひ, ふ, み, ..." (or "ひい, ふう, みい, ...") is just an abbreviated version of this, and is occasionally ...
9
votes
Accepted
Leaving away the 目 suffix for ordinal numbers
Nページ can mean "N page(s)" referring to the number of pages (eg 300ページの本 = a 300-page book). However, Nページ can also mean "page N", the page marked with that number. On the other ...
8
votes
Accepted
Structure: thing を numeral (or numeral and counter) ください
The following Wikipedia article on Japanese counter word explains well about how the counter words or counters (josūshi 助数詞) work in Japanese.
In Japanese, as in Chinese and Korean, numerals cannot ...
8
votes
Accepted
8
votes
Accepted
How would you refer to an apartment number?
In this case, Santos isn't saying he's from (apartment) "four hundred and eight", but (apartment) "four - oh - eight".
まる (kanji 丸) in this case refers to the symbol ○, which can sometimes stand in ...
7
votes
Accepted
Can I pronounce 十三日 as じゅうみっか?
Can I pronounce 十三日 as じゅうみっか?
Can you? Yes. You could also pronounce it as wagawaga boom tash, or as fweeeEEEEEE gobble gobble. However, none of these are likely to be understood by Japanese ...
7
votes
Accepted
Random people names in Japanese? いちろう vs じろう vs さぶろうvs しろう
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 "Fulano, Mengano y Sultano".
First, regarding ...
6
votes
Accepted
How do you call different methods for writing numbers (notations)?
The former method is 命数法【めいすうほう】, and the latter is 位【くらい】取【ど】り記数法【きすうほう】, although they're not known to most people. See this, this, or this book.
Wikipedia says that, in English, 10000 is written ...
6
votes
Accepted
How would you say "please give me 10 of this"?
You can stay with the form:
これを〇〇ください
But beyond 9, you'd need to switch from the traditional hitotsu-futatsu numerals to ichi-ni-style and add an appropriate counter for the item.
For a generic ...
6
votes
Accepted
What is the significance of number 8 (八) in Japanese?
This one puzzled me, so I did some digging.
I couldn't find anything definitive on where the "many" meaning may have come from. This kanji does seem to have this meaning in Chinese as well, as we ...
6
votes
Accepted
Is there a methodology for forming the intuition to count in myriads?
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 ...
6
votes
Can 11,000 be written 1.1万?
Yes, we do sometimes utilize a large number as a unit for brevity, and of course it is customary to use powers of 104 (万, 億, 兆...) in Japanese, instead of those of 103 (thousand, million, billion...).
...
6
votes
Accepted
How is the number 0.01 spoken in Japanese?
I think the most common is れい てん れいいち (At least I would read so). れい would be pronounced more like れー.
Other possibilities may be (1)ゼロ てん ゼロいち or (2)れい てん ゼロいち. To me, 1 sounds a little odd, but 2 ...
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