Counting in Japanese is easy to learn, because it is very consistent. For example, in English, we have "eleven," but in Japanese, it is "juuichi," or "ten one." "Twenty" is "nijuuichi," or "two ten one."
The thing that always throws me off is that the breaks in larger numbers are different than in English. For example, as we add more and more zeros to a number, we say:
One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, one million, ten million, one hundred million, one billion.
In Japanese, they break the numbers up like this (they use different words, of course):
One (1), ten (10), hundred (100), thousand (1,000), one "man" (10,000), ten "man" (100,000), one hundred "man" (1,000,000), one thousand "man" (10,000,000), one "oku," (100,000,000), and ten "oku" (1,000,000,000).
I'm pretty good up until one "man," then I have to start thinking.
The thing that always throws me off is that the breaks in larger numbers are different than in English. For example, as we add more and more zeros to a number, we say:
One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, one million, ten million, one hundred million, one billion.
In Japanese, they break the numbers up like this (they use different words, of course):
One (1), ten (10), hundred (100), thousand (1,000), one "man" (10,000), ten "man" (100,000), one hundred "man" (1,000,000), one thousand "man" (10,000,000), one "oku," (100,000,000), and ten "oku" (1,000,000,000).
I'm pretty good up until one "man," then I have to start thinking.