Learn Kanji: Numbers 1- 10

In this post, we introduce how to write and read numbers kanji from 1 - 10. All of these kanji are classified as Grade 1 kanji.

*In our blog posts, we use hiragana for representing Japanese pronunciation. If you want to learn hiragana, please visit our website for hiragana or visit our YouTube Hiragana playlist.

Contents

Specific Numbers Kanji Lessons

2 Ways of Reading Numbers

Onyomi

Kunyomi

First of all, like reading "1" and "one" in English, Japanese numbers are pronounced the same whether written in kanji or Arabic numerals. For example, "一" and "1" are both pronounced "いち" in Japanese. ;)

Specific Numbers Kanji Lessons

Let's study kanji numbers 1 - 10 from video lessons to begin! Kanji has multiple pronunciations, and you can basically study each pronunciation by each example.

*Tip: It ’s easier to remember when you write them on paper and say them aloud :)

 Kanji Lesson 一 (Grade 1)  
1 (one)

 Kanji Lesson 二 (Grade 1) 

2 (two)

 Kanji Lesson 三 (Grade 1) 

3 (three)

 Kanji Lesson 四 (Grade 1) 

4 (four)

 Kanji Lesson 五 (Grade 1) 

5 (five)

 Kanji Lesson 六 (Grade 1) 

6 (six)

 Kanji Lesson 七 (Grade 1) 

7 (seven)

 Kanji Lesson 八 (Grade 1) 

8 (eight)

 Kanji Lesson 九 (Grade 1) 

9 (nine)

 Kanji Lesson 十 (Grade 1) 

10 (ten)

2 Ways of Reading Numbers

As you can see in the videos above, kanji has multiple pronunciations. There are multiple ways to pronounce numbers as well.

For example:
The kanji "一" has four pronunciations, いち, いつ, ひと, and ひとつ. The pronunciations used to count this number are いち and ひとつ.


There are two major ways of reading numbers because we have both "onyomi" (on reading) and "kunyomi" (kun reading) for kanji in Japanese.

Onyomi 

(*used for mathematics and for reading any number.)

1.  一 (いち)
2.  二 (に)
3.  三 (さん)
4.  四 (し /よん)
5.  五 (ご)
6.  六 (ろく)
7.  七 (しち / なな)
8.  八 (はち)
9. 九 (きゅう / く)
10.  十 (じゅう)

Kunyomi

(*used when reading numbers 1 - 10)

1.  一つ (ひとつ)
2.  二つ (ふたつ)
3.  三つ (みっつ)
4.  四つ (よっつ)
5.  五つ (いつつ)
6.  六つ (むっつ)
7.  七つ (ななつ)
8.  八つ (やっつ)
9. 九つ (ここのつ)
10.  十 (とお)

You learned the 10 basic kanji numbers and 2 ways of reading numbers! Great job! :)