Help with bigger numbers....and this phrase:

[Desstile]

I'm having a really hard time with some of the bigger numbers in Japanese. o.O I mean, I have no problem saying a number in the hundreds but when it's a number like: 150,000....I'm not sure how to pronounce it. :S I was hoping you guys could list some examples and how to pronounce them so I can learn from that.

Also, how do you say: "In the morning I eat _______." Or "I eat ____ in the morning" ....either way is fine.

I know 'Asa' is 'morning', and "____ o tabemasu" is "I eat ____." But how do you add them together?

Thanks

[Nagoyankee]

I'd be more than willing to help if I didn't have to use romaji... Can you not read hiragana?

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by Desstile

I'm having a really hard time with some of the bigger numbers in Japanese. o.O I mean, I have no problem saying a number in the hundreds but when it's a number like: 150,000....I'm not sure how to pronounce it. :S I was hoping you guys could list some examples and how to pronounce them so I can learn from that.

Also, how do you say: "In the morning I eat _______." Or "I eat ____ in the morning" ....either way is fine.

I know 'Asa' is 'morning', and "____ o tabemasu" is "I eat ____." But how do you add them together?

Thanks

I'm assuming you're a real beginner from your question, but try and pick up hiragana ASAP and stop using romaji. You'll learn the langage faster and more accurately. Stuff like counting also makes much more sense in kanji.

Counting in Japanese is pretty logical. Think about the basics.
To get 'tens' of numbers, ie, 20, 30, 40, we take the number of tens, and then add the tens. So ni-jyuu, san-jyuu, yon-kyuu, go-jyuu, which literally is 'two-tens, three-tens, four-tens, five-tens etc"

At 100, instead of saying 'ten-tens' or 'jyuu-jyuu' we switch to using 'hyaku' and the process starts again. At 1000, we change 'jyuu-hyaku' to 'sen'.
at 10,000, we change 'jyuu-sen' to 'man'. The trick when you get to 'jyuu-man' you don't change it.

So with numbers over 100,000, it's mostly just a case of adding up 10,000's, until you get to 100 million, then the word 'oku' is used.

EG:
5= go = five
15=jyuu-go= ten and five
50= go-jyuu= five tens
500= go-hyaku =five one-hundreds
550=go-hyaku-go-jyuu= five one-hundreds and five tens.
5000= go-sen= five one-thousands.
5555= go-sen-go-hyakyu-go-jyuu-go= five one-thousands and five one-hundreds and five tens and five.
50,000= go-man= five ten-thousands.
100,000= jyuu-man = ten ten-thousands.
150,000= jyuu-go-man= 15 ten-thousands.
1,000,000= hyaku-man = 100 ten-thousands (aka, one million)
10,000,000= Sen-man = 1000 ten-thousans (aka, ten million)

As for "In the morning I eat _______." Or "I eat ____ in the morning", the simplest structure is: ( "Time" ni "Food" o "Tabemasu"). So "asa ni _____ o tabemasu." Ni is, on a very very basic level, a time/location marker. It's the 'In the' part of "in the morning' or the 'at' of "at noon". Obviously, that's not the whole story; ni has many more uses but that's all you need to know to make this sentence work.

But seriously seriously, learn your hiragana and katakana before you start going much further with your learning. Romaji will only handicap your understanding of Japanese.

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Columbine

I'm assuming you're a real beginner from your question, but try and pick up hiragana ASAP and stop using romaji. You'll learn the langage faster and more accurately. Stuff like counting also makes much more sense in kanji.

Counting in Japanese is pretty logical. Think about the basics.
To get 'tens' of numbers, ie, 20, 30, 40, we take the number of tens, and then add the tens. So ni-jyuu, san-jyuu, yon-kyuu, go-jyuu, which literally is 'two-tens, three-tens, four-tens, five-tens etc"

At 100, instead of saying 'ten-tens' or 'jyuu-jyuu' we switch to using 'hyaku' and the process starts again. At 1000, we change 'jyuu-hyaku' to 'sen'.
at 10,000, we change 'jyuu-sen' to 'man'. The trick when you get to 'jyuu-man' you don't change it.

So with numbers over 100,000, it's mostly just a case of adding up 10,000's, until you get to 100 million, then the word 'oku' is used.

EG:
5= go = five
15=jyuu-go= ten and five
50= go-jyuu= five tens
500= go-hyaku =five one-hundreds
550=go-hyaku-go-jyuu= five one-hundreds and five tens.
5000= go-sen= five one-thousands.
5555= go-sen-go-hyakyu-go-jyuu-go= five one-thousands and five one-hundreds and five tens and five.
50,000= go-man= five ten-thousands.
100,000= jyuu-man = ten ten-thousands.
150,000= jyuu-go-man= 15 ten-thousands.
1,000,000= hyaku-man = 100 ten-thousands (aka, one million)
10,000,000= Sen-man = 1000 ten-thousans (aka, ten million)

As for "In the morning I eat _______." Or "I eat ____ in the morning", the simplest structure is: ( "Time" ni "Food" o "Tabemasu"). So "asa ni _____ o tabemasu." Ni is, on a very very basic level, a time/location marker. It's the 'In the' part of "in the morning' or the 'at' of "at noon". Obviously, that's not the whole story; ni has many more uses but that's all you need to know to make this sentence work.

But seriously seriously, learn your hiragana and katakana before you start going much further with your learning. Romaji will only handicap your understanding of Japanese.

You've done a smashing job explaining this. However, without kanji, you've likely just utterly confused him. You were correct that it makes much more sense in kanji. I'd go so far as to say that, without kanji, a learner will have a terrible time trying to learn to count past, say, nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine.

[Desstile]

Thanks. That really helps.

And I can read and write hiragana and katakana and some kanji. I just can't type those on here because I don't know how therefore I use romanji. >.<

We've already covered counting in class...I was just unclear of how counting was with the bigger numbers because it's quite different from English. I'm actually not as much of a beginner as you would think...I swear. >.< lol!

[Columbine]

Originally Posted by Desstile

Thanks. That really helps.

And I can read and write hiragana and katakana and some kanji. I just can't type those on here because I don't know how therefore I use romanji. >.<

We've already covered counting in class...I was just unclear of how counting was with the bigger numbers because it's quite different from English. I'm actually not as much of a beginner as you would think...I swear. >.< lol!

You're welcome. If you need help enabling Japanese text on your computer there's a sticky with info how to go about it at the top of the 'Learning Japanese' forum.

[Nagoyankee]

You may already know but I think I might mention the three different pronunciation of 百（ひゃく = hundred） for those who don't.

ひゃく 100, 200, 400, 500, 700, 900

びゃく 300

ぴゃく 600, 800

[KyleGoetz]

Originally Posted by Nagoyankee

You may already know but I think I might mention the three different pronunciation of 百（ひゃく = hundred） for those who don't.

ひゃく 100, 200, 400, 500, 700, 900

びゃく 300

ぴゃく 600, 800

That's a good note to give! To elaborate on this point, this is an example of rendaku. (Rendaku - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia)

[jesselt]

If you think basic numbers are hard just wait until you start counting things

One of my goals when I go to Japan is to just avoid counting anything at all times.

[SHAD0W]

Originally Posted by jesselt

If you think basic numbers are hard just wait until you start counting things

One of my goals when I go to Japan is to just avoid counting anything at all times.

Same. Also, I can't wait to make my first expensive purchase and to stare blankly in panic at the poor shop assistant when (s)he tells me the price and I can't figure it out.. lol