Nowadays, usually used letters for number in Japan are 1,2,3...9,0, but as you know, the traditional style of writing sentences is from top to bottom and then from right to left. In this case, writing numbers by english style is difficult and traditional letters for numbers are used.     Here are the basic letters for numbers. These are simplified chinese letters. Original letters are not often used.

usual business meaning pronunciations usual traditional old style one ichi hitotsu hii two ni futatsu fuu three san mittsu mii   four shi or yon yottsu yoh   five go itsutsu ii   six roku muttsu muu   seven shichi or nana nanatsu naa   eight hachi yattsu yaa   nine ku or kyu kokonotsu kokonotsu ten jyu toh toh

Why there are business letters ? It is because usual letters are easy to massage for cheating purpose. For example, can be re-written as or and even to or .     One pronunciation is derived from Chinese pronunciation, and the other is traditional pronunciation of traditional Japanese words that have same meaning.      All the chinese letters have two way of pronunciation. One is chinese pronunciation and one is the pronunciation for Japanese traditional words that have the same meaning. Often more than two ways of pronunciation are observed. The usual pronunciation for numbers are chinese one. The chinese pronunciations are not really Chinese pronunciation but those what Japanese thought Chinese pronunciation in old times but these pronunciations are said similar to the pronunciation in a local tongue in southern part of China.     How about zero ? Initially there was no letter for it. No, there is! (very japanese expression. The "no" in this case, denies "no letter for it".) is the Kanji for it (originaly it did not have the meaning of zero). The pronunciation are "rei" or "zero" (apparently english). "rei" is never used in counting. No there is an exception. If I got 0 mark in the exam of math. I say "I got "rei ten(mark or point) at math." "Zero" is used in "Zero fighter" or ("Zero Sen" is the right pronunciation) in the past war. means "fight or war". In traditional style of writing, zero is unnecessary. But nowadays, is used for zero.

The table at the right shows larger numbers. Notice that every larger numeric unit is ten thousand times of next larger one. It seems that Older Japanese did not counted more than ten millions. The number of Gods in Japan is said 8 millions. (see the page of Japanese Christmas). Probably, it meant the maximum number.     Noticeable is that large numeric letters are ten thousands times of smaller numeric letters. Though we never do, expressing 12,3456,7890 in stead of 1,234,567,890 would be more easier to read for Japanese.

numeric unit meaning pronunciation usual japanese hundred hyaku momo thousand sen chi ten thousands man yorozu 100 millions oku ? trillion choh ?