How to Read Numbers in Japanese Documents

The first step will be to become familiar with the count to ten.

1 一

2 二

3 三

4 四

5 五

6 六

7 七

8 八

9 九

10 十

Then you gonna need these three kanji

百 = 100

千 = 1000

万 = 10000

A useful table since sometimes you gonna meet an old style numericals.

Now we can combine them and get 600

800 八百

3000 三千

8000 八千


Now let's make things a little more complicated

43 076 = 四万三千七十六 , where

四万 = 40 000
三千 = 3000
七十 = 70
六 = 6

On a real document, the serial number will be located vertically

四
万
三
千
七
十
六

 

Now let's try it on a real document.

We observe from top to bottom

四
万
七
千
五
百
四
十
二

四万 = 40 000
七千 = 7000
五百 = 500
四十二 = 42

Our document number is 47 542.

 

Sometimes the number on the document can go over 999,999. No problem. We can easily get a million by combining the kanjis we already know

1 000 000 = 百万

That is, we simply take and combine 百 (= 100) and 千 (= 1000), then 100 times 10,000 = 1,000,000

When there are several millions, then additional number appears before 百万.

For example,

2,000,000 = 二百万, that is, 200 times 10,000.

And if we have a million with some change, then additional number appears between 百 and 万.

For example,

1,020,000 = 百二万

 

Let's try to read the millionth number on an actual document.

Observe

百
六
万
三
千
二
百
三
十

where

百六万 = 1 060 000

千三 = 3000

二百 = 200

三十 = 30

Our document number 1 063 230.

 

The number in the document can be easily found by the column of numbers preceded by the kanji

第 = №

In writing it looks like this