When you are learning a language, in addition to greetings and saying thank you, one of the first things you learn are numbers, so in this article we will teach you how to count to 10 in Japanese, it really is not that complicated and it will help you you can have fun, why not memorize them and then tell someone that you already know some Japanese by telling them the numbers?, we will say the number in Spanish, the way it is written in Latin letters (romanization), how it is written in Japanese and also the the way it is pronounced.
Let’s remember that the Japanese have also resorted to writing in Roman and Latin so that people can learn the language more easily; Japanese scripts are generally in Katakana, Hiragana, or Kanji; the katakana is used to form words that originate from abroad and the Hiragana for the words originating in Japan and both are in the form of a syllabary (that is, they are a representation of syllables which make up words) and, on the contrary, the Kanji (contains original Chinese characters) is made with ideograms, that is, they are really signs that are not linguistic, but that do represent messages and concepts that are easy to understand. Romanization would be for them Rōmaji (ローマ字), which is the one we understand the most, since it is based on the Latin letters.
As information, we tell you that Japanese writing comes from China and that it was brought to Japan by the Koreans in the fourth century, so we can see that the Japanese today have three systems and forms of writing.
What do you need to count to 10 in Japanese?
Want to learn japanese language
Instructions for counting to 10 in Japanese
- One: Ichi(一) you must pronounce it the same way as it is written, only the second I must be softer so it would practically sound ich.
- Two: Ni(二) also pronounce it the same way as it is written.
- Three: San(三), pronounce it as it is written.
- Four: Shi (四) remember the second syllable of sushi to pronounce it, you can also say yon.
- Five: Go(五) also pronounce it as it is written.
- Six Roku(六) the letter r in the Japanese language sounds like between r and l with the l protruding more, so pronounce it like this “loku”, use only the tip of your tongue to pronounce it.
- Seven: Shichi(七) pronounce it as it is written, but give the ch a little more force, you can also use the word “nana”.
- Eight: Hachi(八) pronounce it like this: “jachi”
- Nine: Kyuu(九) pronounce it like this: “qiu”
- Ten: Juu (十) pronounce it like this: “yiu”
- The Japanese language has a system used to count objects; to do this you have to put a suffix on the number, there may be variation between objects, for example it is one thing to count thin and long objects like a pencil and another to count animals, although some nouns do not have a suffix; We will see below how to use them.
- One: Hitotsu(一つ), pronounce it like this “ji-tot-su”. You can see that in the form of its writing we have (一) that is, the “ichi” that we saw before and the suffix (つ) “tsu” is added.
- Two: Futatsu(二つ), pronounce it as it is written.
- Three: Mittsu(三つ), pronounce it as it is written.
- Four: (四つ), pronounce it like this yo-[pause]-tsu, remember that the Japanese language is rhythmic and pauses are very important; When you read written Romanized Japanese, you will be able to identify the pauses because they are made with two consonants.
- Five: Itsutsu(五つ), pronounce it as it is written.
- Six: Muttsu(六つ), pronounce it like this “mu-[pause]-tsu”.
- Seven: Nanatsu(七つ), pronounce it like this: nana-tsu.”
- Eight: Yatsu(八つ), pronounce it as it is written.
- Nine: Kokonotsu(九つ), pronounce it like this: “coco-no-tsu”.
- Ten To(十), pronounce it as it is written, you can notice that this number does not have the suffix つ.
Tips for Counting to 10 in Japanese
- How could you observe, Japanese has two different ways of counting; The first one we saw is derived from Chinese, since the Japanese took from it, many years ago, ideography and the second form does come from the original Japanese words; in modern Japanese both counts are still used and it will depend on the grammar to know which one to use.
- When you know the numbers from 1 to 10, it will be easier for you later to learn from 11 to 99 because they are combinations of the first ones.
- The Japanese have different types and counting systems, which you have to memorize because there are really no rules to follow to know this, for example to count animals instead of “ichi inu” it becomes “i piki, but really this is something that people learn with practice, when they immerse themselves in the language.
- For ordinary numbers, all you have to do is add the syllable me (目)= first= hitotsume, second= futatsume, third= mittsume, etc.