Page 280 - Basic Japanese

one of the other digits. The even tens (twenty, thirty, forty,

etc.) are compound words consisting of one of the digits
plus jū ‘ten.’ In other words, the Japanese reads 13 as ‘ten-

three’ and 30 as ‘three-ten.’ The hundreds and thousands
work like the tens: 300 is 3 x 100 (san-byaku), 3000 is 3 x

1000 (san-zen). You will notice some changes in the
pronunciation of the individual elements when they occur in

certain compounds. These are summarized below in note
6.8. Other numerals (like 21, 103, 1007, 2326) consist of a

phrase of several words: sanzen sanbyaku sanjū san ‘3333.’
Here is a list of the primary numerals. Some of the numbers

have more than one possible form, as you can see below.
The more frequently used one is listed first, but the choice

among variants depends on the context and individual
preference.

Primary Numerals

0* rei; zero

1
ichi

2
ni

3
san

4 yon; shi

5