12.1. How does Japanese write large numbers?

Japanese uses a different counting system for large numbers to English. In English, numbers increase by thousands, so one thousand, one million, then one billion, a thousand times a million. Japanese is based on the Chinese system which uses ten thousand as a basic unit. A man (万) is ten thousand, and then an oku (億) is ten thousand times ten thousand, a hundred million. Increasing in number, a chou (兆) is ten thousand times an oku, or a trillion. The following list shows the first few of these large numbers.

Kanji	Pronunciation	Equivalent numerals	English pronunciation
一	いち	1	One
十	じゅう	10	Ten
百	ひゃく	100	One hundred
千	せん	1,000	One thousand
万	まん	10,000	Ten thousand
億	おく	100,000,000	One hundred million
兆	ちょう	1,000,000,000,000	One trillion
京	けい	10,000,000,000,000,000	Ten quadrillion