Korean Numbers

There are two sets of numbers in Korea, the native Korean and the Sino-Korean Numbers.  Sino-Korean numbers are borrowed from Chinese.  Generally speaking, for expression involving dates, money, foreign loanwords, minutes, seconds and counting beyond 99 Sino-Korean numbers are used otherwise its the native Korean numbers. 

You might be wondering why some numbers are skipped in both numeral systems, this is because there are certain patterns to achieve the numbers in between. 

In Native Korean, to express let say 11 it’s 열하나 (yolhana) so the formula is 10(열)+1(하나).  This is the reason why after the number 10 only numbers in multiples of 10 are provided up to 90.  So you have to memorize at least 18 numbers in Native Korean.

While in Sino-Korean, to express let say 32 it’s 삼십이 (sam-ship-i) so the formula is 3(삼) X 10 (십) + 2 (이).  There are few numbers to memorize in Sino-Korean, with just 13 numbers to you can go up to a million already. 

See related posts on how to deal with numbers.  Check the archive.

16 Responses to “Korean Numbers”

  1. Annie Says:
    July 5, 2008 at 3:04 am

    How come for the Sino numbers, number 6’s romanization is “yok ~ ryok” but in Korean it says “yuk ~ ryuk” ?

    Reply
  2. janeybei Says:
    July 5, 2008 at 10:24 am

    Hi annie! Thanks for dropping by. My bad it’s really yuk~ryuk :-)

    Reply
  3. Enno Says:
    October 22, 2008 at 6:46 am

    Hi

    Thank you for sharing this. But what about zero?

    Just curious
    Enno

    Reply
  4. janey_bei Says:
    October 22, 2008 at 9:43 am

    Hi Enno,
    its 영 (zero) but lack of something is expressed more as 없다.

    Reply
  5. Enno Says:
    October 22, 2008 at 2:33 pm

    Hi Janey. In fact, I started last week studying
    Korean and numbers were the first topic besides
    the alphabet. This blog is really helpful. I will come
    back often

    Thank you for your explanation

    Enno

    Reply
  6. Rica Says:
    November 5, 2008 at 4:25 am

    Hi..

    I like this blog. i’ve been looking for something like this.
    Hi janey.. i agree with you, this blog is really helpful. Thank you all.

    Reply
  7. ierajun Says:
    December 31, 2008 at 2:06 pm

    thank you very much!!

    Reply
  8. w-xin Says:
    January 3, 2009 at 12:49 pm

    hey!!! absolutely helpful blog!!! ((: will definitely visit often! anyway, how long have you been learning korean language?

    Reply
  9. Yaren Says:
    February 7, 2009 at 7:47 pm

    hi friends İ’m yaren Im from turkey Ilove you korea

    Reply
  10. Yaren Says:
    February 7, 2009 at 7:51 pm

    w-xin can you teach korean language me
    pleas pleas pleas and pleas

    Reply
  11. Maianra Says:
    April 7, 2009 at 11:50 pm

    안녕하세요, 제인!
    나는 한국어를 공부하는 인도네시아 학샌인데 마야이에요.
    만나서 뵙게 반가워요.

    I was googling about birthday message in Korean besides “생일 축하합니다” until I found out your blog. 이 blog-은 너무 좋아요!

    Well, I just wanted to help you out about Enno’s question above. As I know, there’s actually ‘zero’ in Sino-Korea. It is called as 궁 (gung /goong/). So, when you have to say your phone number which has ‘zero’ in it, you can use it with the ‘zero’ in Sino-Korea (궁).

    And about the romanization of 20 and 50 from Native Korean.. isn’t it “seumul” for 20 and “swin” for 50?

    Well, sorry if you think I am the one who made mistakes. But honestly, I admire you so much for making this kind of blog (I was actually going to make the similar one but only it is using Indonesian to explain everything).

    Good luck in learning Korean. And by the way, now you’re in my subscription list of GoogleReader.

    Reply
    • janey_bei Says:
      April 8, 2009 at 12:24 am

      마야씨 웹사이트을 방문해서 고마워요.
      그래요, There is zero in Sino Korean Its 공 (Kong) =)
      궁 (Kung or Goong) is Palace in Korean.
      You are right the romanization is semeul and swin i just couldn’t change it
      as I don’t have the image file (lazy to re-type).
      다시 고마워요.

      Reply
  12. Maianra Says:
    April 9, 2009 at 3:14 am

    아, 네. ‘공’인데요, was my mistake. LOL.
    It’s because I am still learning too.
    And about the romanization, 그래요.. 그래요.
    하지만, it’s better to make a correction outside the image file so people won’t miss-understand. :D Well, it’s just my suggestion…

    자, thanks for the warm welcome.
    너무 고마워요.
    I gotta visit here regularly!

    Reply
  13. Rita Says:
    June 18, 2009 at 7:55 am

    Hi. Thanks for posting this. It’s really helpful. I’m going to visit often. =]

    Reply
  14. ss Says:
    August 25, 2009 at 8:58 pm

    what’s the difference between sino and native korean?

    Reply
    • janey_bei Says:
      August 26, 2009 at 1:25 pm

      Sino Korean is lifted from Chinese number while the native korean are well as the name goes their own word for number which is limited up to 99. Each type of number has corresponding use in Korean like money is counted using Sino Korean while for hours in time its normally the Native Korean

      Reply

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