From this week on for a while, I am going to post a JLPT N5 level vocabulary quiz on Tuesdays.
Today’s the first day for this format and today’s topic is big numbers. 179 800 in English is one hundred seventy-nine thousand eight hundred. So if you translate that directly into Japanese you may have picked the choice d. ひゃくななじゅうきゅうせんはっぴゃくえん. However, while in English a new word (thousand, million, etc.) appears after every 3rd digit, in Japanese (and Chinese) that happens after every 4th digit. So 10 thousand is NOT 十千 but it is 一万.
Then, 179 800 has to be read as 17万9800.which is:
十七万九千八百
じゅうななまん きゅうせんはっぴゃく
i.e. the correct answer is b.
しち instead of なな is OK, but that sounds too similar to いち, so なな is more commonly used.
If you say はちひゃく, most people will understand it but Japanese people will say はっぴゃく.
If you’d like to revise how to read big numbers in Japanese, please watch the following video.
More videos like this at: https://www.easyjapanesee.com/youtube-videos.html
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