三百

How to Read Japanese Numbers

Nine digits. Four multipliers. Five phonetic irregulars. That's the entire Japanese number system.

Start Here · Guides

Five guides to the whole system

New to Japanese numbers and counters? Each guide takes one piece apart — pick where you want to start.

十 How Numbers Work → The two reading systems and the digit + place logic behind every number under 10,000. 六百 Number Irregulars → The five sound changes, and why 4, 7, 9 dodge し・しち・く. 万 The 万 System → Counting big — why Japan groups by ten-thousands, not thousands. 本 Japanese Counters → What 助数詞 are and the six phonological classes that tame the list. つつ & 個 — Universal Counters → The two must-know counters that keep you understood when you don't know the right one.

The Basics

The digits: 一 through 九

Every Japanese number is built from nine digits and four positional multipliers. The digits are the same for 1–9 regardless of the position they appear in.

Kanji	Reading	Romaji
一	いち	ichi
二	に	ni
三	さん	san
四	し / よん	shi / yon
五	ご	go
六	ろく	roku
七	しち / なな	shichi / nana
八	はち	hachi
九	く / きゅう	ku / kyuu

Some digits have two readings (四, 七, 九). In everyday counting and prices, よん, なな, and きゅう are most common. Both readings are correct — context and convention determine which is used.

How Numbers Are Built

The positional system: 十・百・千・万

Japanese uses four positional multipliers. You combine a digit with a multiplier to form each place value, then read them left to right.

Kanji	Reading	Value
十	じゅう	10
百	ひゃく	100
千	せん	1,000
万	まん	10,000

To say 25: two-ten-five → 二十五 (にじゅうご). To say 142: one-hundred four-ten-two → 百四十二 (ひゃくよんじゅうに). To say 3,456: three-thousand four-hundred five-ten-six → 三千四百五十六 (さんぜんよんひゃくごじゅうろく).

One vs. one-hundred: Unlike English ("one hundred"), Japanese drops the leading 一 before 百 and 千. You say ひゃく for 100, not いちひゃく. The same applies to 1,000 — せん, not いちせん. Above 10,000 the pattern shifts: 一万 (いちまん) is correct.

The Hard Part

The five irregular readings

Five numbers don't follow the regular pattern. The sounds change due to euphonic assimilation (音便) — the syllables shift to flow more naturally when spoken quickly. These are worth memorizing individually because they appear constantly in prices, quantities, and dates.

Number	Kanji	Expected	Actual reading
300	三百	さんひゃく	さんびゃく
600	六百	ろくひゃく	ろっぴゃく
800	八百	はちひゃく	はっぴゃく
3,000	三千	さんせん	さんぜん
8,000	八千	はちせん	はっせん

These five readings also affect any number that contains them. 3,800 is さんぜんはっぴゃく — both irregulars apply. 6,300 is ろくせんさんびゃく — only the 三百 irregular applies. Once the five base cases are automatic, the combinations follow naturally.

From Knowledge to Fluency

Why reading a table isn't enough

Knowing that 800 is はっぴゃく and being able to read it instantly in conversation are different skills. The irregulars are easy to memorize from a chart — but under pressure, like hearing a price at a shop or a number in a listening exam, most learners still revert to the wrong reading or freeze while parsing.

Active recall drilling — seeing a number and forcing yourself to produce the reading before it's revealed — builds the reflex that passive study doesn't. Repeated retrieval, including the failures, is what makes the irregulars feel automatic rather than effortful. Twenty focused reps is worth more than re-reading this page five times.

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