grammar
numbers
Counting in Korean
Published 2025-03-18

Numbers: Counting Things in Korean (Part 2 of 4)

In the previous lesson, we learned about the two number systems in Korean, and how to count to ten using both of them. In this lesson, we’ll learn to count past ten. Let’s begin!

Counting past ten using Sino-Korean numbers is simple. You just separate the number into two parts - how many tens are in it, and the one’s place. If you’re familiar with other east Asian languages, like Chinese and Japanese, this will be very familiar to you. For example, let’s take the number 45:

45 = 4 x 10 + 5. Thus,

45

Four tens is “사십”

Add the remaining 5 (오)

45 → 사십오

So, we can now easily count past ten, up to 100. Like so:

22 (2×10 + 2)

Two tens is “이십”

Add 2 (이)

22 → 이십이
97 (9×10 + 7)

Nine tens is “구십”

Add 7 (칠)

97 → 구십칠
50 (5×10)

Five tens is “오십”

50 → 오십
warning sign

The “teen” numbers (11-19) are counted the same way as the above, except you don’t need to count the number of tens. So 19 is “십구” and not “일십구”.


Counting past ten using native Korean numbers

Counting past ten using the native Korean numbers is done very similarly to the above, except the number of tens is simply replaced by an actual Korean word. These words are:

20

스물
30

서른
40

마흔
50

60

예순
70

일흔
80

여든
90

아흔

So, we can count past ten using the native Korean numbers like so:

12 (10 + 2)

Ten is “열”

Add 2 (둘)

12 → 열둘
21 (20 + 1)

Twenty is “스물”

Add 1 (하나)

21 → 스물하나
99 (90 + 9)

Ninety is “아흔”

Add 9 (아홉)

99 → 아흔아홉

Counting past one hundred in Korean

In Sino-Korean, one hundred is 백. We can count past one hundred using Sino-Korean numbers the same way we count from 11-99 - count the hundreds, count the tens, then count the one’s place. Like so:

623 (6×100 + 2×10 + 3)

600 is 육백

20 is 이십

3 is 삼

623 → 육백이십삼
190 (100 + 9×10)

100 is 백

90 is 구십

190 → 백구십
800 → 팔백

To reach the thousands and tens of thousands using Sino-Korean numbers, we use 천 and 만 for thousand and ten thousand, respectively:

1425 (1000 + 4×100 + 2×10 + 5)
일천사백이십오
999999 (90×10000 + 9×1000 + 9×100 + 9×10 + 9)
구십구만 구천구백구십구
1000000 (100×10000)
백만
63700 (6×10000 + 3×1000 + 7×100)
육만 삼천칠백

After 만, we make a big jump to a hundred million, represented by 억.

900,000,000
구억
warning sign

From 억 and beyond, 일 gets attached even when there’s only one multiple.

150,000,000 = 일억 오천만

You can also do this for lower numbers, too, if you want to be extra precise, but it’s not necessary.

Here’s a fun one for you - in Netflix’s Squid Game, the total prize money taken home by the winner is 45.6 billion won (won is the Korean currency). How do we write 45.6 billion in Korean? Like so:

45,600,000,000 (456×100,000,000)
사백오십육억

You can also write it like so - 456억.

Wrap Up

We now know how to count in Korean! Notice how I didn’t cover how to count past one hundred using native Korean numbers. Well, believe it or not, most Korean people these days don’t know how to use the native number system when the number gets large enough.

For large numbers, Koreans prefer the Sino-Korean number system. In fact, most people stop using the native Korean system even before getting to 100. For example:

사과 삼십개*

thirty apples

*개 is a word that is used as a counter. In Korean, you’d say 30 “개” apples instead of just 30 apples. This is how counting works in Chinese as well. We will learn more about counters in the next lesson.

This lesson is more useful for spoken Korean than it is for written Korean. In writing, often times you can simply write the number itself:

사과 삼십개 = 사과 30개

You still need to understand counters, though. We’ll cover these in the next lesson, as well as when to use Sino-Korean numbers and when to use native Korean numbers. See you in the next one!

check mark

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Numbers: Counting Things in Korean (Part 1 of 4)
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Numbers: Counting Things in Korean (Part 3 of 4)