Numbers in Korean

How do you read numbers in Korean? Korea has two number systems that is ‘China System’ and ‘Native Korean (Korea System)’.
Today, we’re going to learn ‘China System’ number.

Let’s first study from 1 to 9.

Number	KOREAN	ENGLISH
1	일	ONE
2	이	TWO
3	삼	THREE
4	사	FOUR
5	오	FIVE
6	육	SIX
7	칠	SEVEN
8	팔	EIGHT
9	구	NINE

Next, let’s learn a little larger numbers.

Number	KOREAN	ENGLISH
10	십	TEN
100	백	ONE HUNDRED
1,000	천	ONE THOUSAND
10,000	만	TEN THOUSAND
100,000	십만	ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND
1,000,000	백만	ONE MILLION
10,000,000	천만	TEN MILLION
100,000,000	일억	ONE HUNDRED MILLION
1,000,000,000	십억	ONE BILLION

Now, let’s read through the numbers in Korean.

For example, how would you read ‘20’ in Korean? 20 in Korean is literally ‘이십 (two-ten)’, so, read ‘2(이)’ first, then ‘10(십)’. 30 is ‘삼십 (three-ten)’ so, read ‘3(삼)’ first, then ‘10(십)’. Likewise , We read the number ‘200’ as ‘이백’, ‘2,000’ as ‘이천’, and ‘20,000’ as ‘이만’ and so on.

Number	KOREAN	ENGLISH
20	이십 (TWO, TEN)	TWENTY
30	삼십 (THREE, TEN)	THIRTY
200	이백 (TWO, HUNDRED)	TWO HUNDRED
2,000	이천 ((TWO, THOUSAND)	TWO THOUSAND
20,000	이만 ((TWO, TEN-THOUSAND)	TWENTY THOUSAND

Let’s read a little harder numbers this time.

For example, how would you read ‘59’ in Korean? you should read the number ‘59’ as ‘오십구’. also you should read ‘361’ as ‘삼백육십일’.

Number	KOREAN	ENGLISH
59	오십구 (FIVE, TEN, NINE)	FIFTY NINE
361	삼백육십일 (THREE, HUNDRED, SIXTY, ONE)	THREE HUNDRED SIXTY ONE

However, if the number of ‘1’ is combined with ‘10’, ‘100’, ‘1,000’ and ‘10, 000’, you do not need to read ‘1(일)’. For example, ‘100’ is not ‘일 백‘ but ‘백’. So, ‘31,000’ should be read as ‘삼만 천’.