JAPANESE Lesson Two - Numbers and Ages

[Starry Starry Fright]

You learned your "123"s along with your "ABC"s, so we need to get you started on some Japanese numbers as well.

The numbers from one to ten are as follows:

one - ichi - EE CHEE

two - ni - KNEE

three - san - SAN

four - shi OR yon - SHE or YON

five - go - GO

six - roku - ROW-KU

seven - shichi OR nana - SHECHEE or NANA

eight - hachi - HAW-CHEE

nine - kyuu - KYEW

ten - jyuu - JEW

You may have noticed that four and seven have two words - this is because "shi" is a word associated with death. If you are counting off people and you point to someone and say "shi", you are esentially cursing them. Do not do it. Use yon. For counting inanimate objects or doing math, however, shi is perfectly acceptable. This phenomenon is more associated with the number four, and a little less so with seven.

Now, to learn to count!

To make a number past ten, you start adding up the tens and ones. Let me show you.

17 = jyuu nana or ten seven

36 = san jyuu roku or three tens six

81 = hachi jyuu ichi or eight tens one

and so on and so forth.

Now, to add it to your introduction. To say how old you are, the expression is

watashi wa ____ sai desu.

The only word you don't know is "sai" which means "years old".

So "watashi wa kyuu jyuu kyuu sai desu" would mean "I am ninety nine years old. But I am hoping none of you are.

To ask someone how old they are, you would say "nan sai desu ka?".

Nan - means "what?". It is always used in questions.
ka - a particle that indicates a question is being asked. It goes on the end of every question like a verbal question mark.

You can learn the kanji for this lesson here.

And here we have reached the end of lesson two? Questions or comments? Post them here. If everything is okay, post that too, so I can figure out who has read what!

Click here to return to lesson one.

Click here to go on to lesson three.  

[Starry Starry Fright]

Nobody made it to lesson two?  

[Starry Starry Fright]

Can one bump a sticky? Hmm...  

[TakahiroMisaki12]

Watashi wa jyuu roku sai desu. mrgreen  

[iTechnicolor II]

Watashi wa jyuu roku sai desu. xD  

[Starry Starry Fright]

KushinaUzumaki12

Watashi wa jyuu roku sai desu. mrgreen

iTechnicolor II

Watashi wa jyuu roku sai desu. xD

Very good! biggrin  

[x-Meoi-x]

watashi wa jyuu yon sai, demo watashi wa jyuu goku sai ni nareru (this year?) ^^  

[Starry Starry Fright]

95Neko-chan95

watashi wa jyuu yon sai, demo watashi wa jyuu goku sai ni nareru (this year?) ^^

I think you mean "jyuu go". "Jyuu goku" means "ten country". biggrin  

[this little secret]

Watashi wa jyuu san sai desu.  

[x-Meoi-x]

Starry Starry Fright

95Neko-chan95

watashi wa jyuu yon sai, demo watashi wa jyuu goku sai ni nareru (this year?) ^^

I think you mean "jyuu go". "Jyuu goku" means "ten country". biggrin

whoops ^^' lol ya  

[Ceciliaracia]

Watashi wa jyuu yon sai desu. xp  

[Kuronuma Sadako]

Watashi wa ni jyuu sai desu biggrin  

[Fratalizite]

watashi wa jyuu ni sai desu.  

[Asano Wakana]

Watashi wa jyuu ni sai desu. smile  

[x Falsi]

Watashi wa jyuu nana sai desu.