Japanese numbers are beautifully regular right up until they aren't — and the irregular readings cluster exactly where daily life happens: prices and clock times. Textbooks bury these in chapter nine; the konbini register quizzes you on them today.
| Number | You'd guess | It's actually |
|---|---|---|
| 300 | さんひゃく | さんびゃく (sanbyaku) |
| 600 | ろくひゃく | ろっぴゃく (roppyaku) |
| 800 | はちひゃく | はっぴゃく (happyaku) |
| 3,000 | さんせん | さんぜん (sanzen) |
| 8,000 | はちせん | はっせん (hassen) |
That's the whole irregular set for money. A ¥380 onigiri run is さんびゃくはちじゅう円 — one irregular, right at the front, where it decides whether you understood anything.
Hours are 〜時 (じ) and behave — except 4:00 is よじ (never よんじ), 7:00 is しちじ, and 9:00 is くじ (never きゅうじ). Store hours signs (営業時間 9:00〜18:00) give you daily reading practice; the station announcer gives you the listening version.
Every konbini transaction runs the same five lines. 袋はご利用ですか — "do you need a bag?" (はい / そのままで大丈夫です). ポイントカードはお持ちですか — "do you have a point card?" (ないです works fine). Then the total, fast: 千二百三十円になります. Learn the skeleton and the whole interaction stops being noise.
Totals arrive in one of two wrappers: 〜になります (casual-polite, most konbini) or 〜でございます (department-store polite). The number hides in the middle: 千二百三十円になります is ¥1,230. Two habits help: watch the register display while listening — it is subtitles for the transaction — and listen for the hundreds digit first, because that is where the irregular readings live. Your change comes back as おつり: おつりは五百円です.
The slip the register prints automatically is a レシート. The formal receipt with your name on it — the one work expenses want — is a 領収書 (りょうしゅうしょ), and you have to ask: 領収書をお願いします. While you're reading paper: the supermarket's evening 割引 stickers (2割引 = 20% off) are the best-value reading practice in Japan, and the station's 精算機 exists so an underpaid ticket is a button press, not a conversation.
Japanese counts things with counter words, and the good news is that daily life runs on a small set:
| Counter | Counts | Daily-life example |
|---|---|---|
| 〜つ | general things | これを二つください — two of these, please |
| 〜人 | people | 二人です — table for two (ひとり and ふたり are irregular; from three, regular にん) |
| 〜枚 | flat things | 切符を二枚ください — two tickets, please |
| 〜本 | long things, bottles | ビールを二本 — two bottles of beer (sound-shifts: いっぽん, さんぼん) |
| 〜杯 | cups and glasses | もう一杯 — one more glass (いっぱい) |
| 〜階 | floors | 三階 — third floor (さんがい, another voicing shift) |
The sound changes follow the same rhythm as the price irregulars: counters beginning with h/p/k tighten after 一, 六, 八, 十 (いっぽん, ろっぴゃく) and voice after ん (さんぼん, さんがい). You do not memorize the rule so much as collect enough examples that new ones sound right.
Hearing よんじゅう when the speaker said よじ (4:00 uses the short form, always). Parsing 八百 as "eight hundred yen" when the shop said はっぴゃく and your ear was still waiting for はち. Answering the bag question with a full sentence when そのままで大丈夫です was the entire expected register. Each of these disappears with a week of targeted drilling — they are pattern-recognition problems, not grammar problems.
Yokoso generates price and time drills with the irregulars weighted by what you miss, mixed into your reviews every few questions — because this is the one part of Japanese the country tests you on daily, for free. Pairs well with the signs guide — 無料, 有料, and 割引 are where numbers meet the wild — and the N4 material continues into 往復/片道 tickets and the fare-adjustment machine. The printable 30-day checklist puts this week of number practice into a full pre-move month.
Drill prices & times free