Annyeonghaseyo, chingudeul! This Learn Korean Section will provide you the differences between 2 types of Korean numbers. Korean numbers consist of 2 systems which are Sino-Korean and Native Korean system. Each system has the difference functions. Native Korean system is only counted from 1 to 99 while we use Sino-Korean system starting from 100. Sino-Korean system derives from Chinese number system. We know that Chinese culture has much influenced Korean culture including the alphabet letters and numbers system. Here we will breakdown 2 numbers systems and the differences between them.
1. Native Korean Numbers List
Native Korean system is counted from:
ํ๋ (hana) 1
๋ (dul) 2
์
(set) 3
๋ท (net) 4
๋ค์ฏ (daseot) 5
์ฌ์ฏ (yeoseot) 6
์ผ๊ณฑ (ilgob) 7
์ฌ๋ (yeodeol) 8
์ํ (ahob) 9
์ด (yeol) 10
์ค๋ฌผ (seumul) 20
์ค๋ฌผํ๋ (seumul-hana) 21
์ค๋ฌผ๋ (seumul-dul) 22
โฆ.
์๋ฅธ (seoreun) 30
๋งํ (maheun) 40
์ฐ (swin) 50
์์ (yesun) 60
์ผํ (ireun) 70
์ฌ๋ (yeodeun) 80
์ํ (aheun) 90
Remember that Native Korean system set is only up to 99. We use Sino-Korean system starting from 100.
2. Sino-Korean Numbers List
Sino-Korean system set covers more numbers than Native Korean one. However, itโs not that complicated and relatively easier to remember. Look the following list:
์ผ (il) 1
์ด (i) 2
์ผ (sam) 3
์ฌ (sa) 4
์ค (o) 5
์ก (yuk) 6
์น (chil) 7
ํ (phal) 8
๊ตฌ (gu) 9
์ญ (sib) 10
์ญ์ผ (sibil) 11
โฆ.
์ด์ญ (isib) 20
์ด์ญ์ผ (isib-il) 21
โฆ.
์ผ์ญ (samsib) 30
์ฌ์ญ (sasib) 40
์ค์ญ (osib) 50
โฆ.
๋ฐฑ (baek) 100
์ฒ (cheon) 1000
๋ง (man) 10.000
์ญ๋ง (simman) 100.000
๋ฐฑ๋ง (baengman) 1.000.000
์ฒ๋ง (cheonman) 10.000.000
์ต (eok) 100.000.000
Etc.
3. Native Korean System to Determine Quantity
Native Korean Numbers can be used to determine the quantity of particular objects and also the number of people, animals, or plants. Letโs see the examples in sentences below:
์ด๋จธ๋๋ ๋น๊ทผ ์ธ ๊ฐ ์ฝ๋๋ค ์ด๋จธ๋๋ ๋น๊ทผ ์ธ ๊ฐ ์ฝ๋๋ค (Eomeoninen danggeun se gae samnida) -> Mother buys 3 carrots
์ ๋ ๊ณ ์์ด ์ํ ๋ง๋ฆฌ ์์ต๋๋ค (Jeoneun goyangi ahop mari isseumnida) -> I have 9 cats
๋ช ๋ช
์์ต๋๊น? ๋ ๋ช
์์ต๋๋ค (Myeot myeong isseumnikka? Du myeong iseeumnida) -> How many persons are there? There are 2 persons.
Note: there is an exception for particular numbers which are 1,2,3,4, and 20. Those have a little change or shortened in writing and pronouncing followed by numbers or partitives. Example: ํ๋ -> ํ , ๋ -> ๋ , ์ -> ์ธ , ์ค๋ฌผ -> ์ค๋ฌด.
4. Native Korean System for Counting Age
We use Native Korean numbers to express someoneโs age. As explained in point 3 above, an exception for number 1,2,3,4, and 20 is still applicable. Those numbers are changed or shortened before adjectives or verbs. Please find in the sentences below:
์ ๋ ์ค๋ฌผ์ฌ๋ ์ด์
๋๋ค (Jeoneun semul-yeodeol sarimnida) -> I am 28 years old.
๊ทธ๋
๋ ์ค๋ฌผํ ์ด์
๋๋ค (Keunyeonen seumul-han sarimnida) -> She is 21 years old.
5. Sino-Korean System to Determine Time
Sino-Korean numbers system is commonly used to count the large amount or uncountable things such as dates, months, years, and time. However, there is an exceptional rule in expressing time since we combine both Native Korean and Sino-Korean systems. We use Native Korean system to determine hours while Sino-Korean is used to determine minutes and seconds. Letโs check the example in the sentences below:
์๋ฒ์ง ์ธ์ ๊ฐ๋๊น? 11์ 24์ผ์ ๊ฐ๋๋ค (Abeohi eonje kamnikka? Sibil-wol isibsa-ire kamnida) -> When does father go? Father goes in November 24.
10:45:8 -> ์ด ์ ์ฌ์ญ์ค ๋ถ ํ ์ด (yeol si sasib-o bun phal cho). Donโt forget to add the adverbs like ์ (si) for hours, ๋ถ (bun) for minutes, and ์ด (cho) for seconds.
6. Sino-Korean Numbers for Phone Number
We use Sino-Korean numbers to read the phone number by mentioning the number one by one. However, it applies an exception in mentioning number 0. Number 0 has two meanings in Korean, ์ (yeong) and ๊ณต (kong). We use์ (yeong) to mention the common numbers while we use ๊ณต (kong) to mention 0 in phone number. Letโs find it in an example below:
0821-3547-9623 -> ๊ณตํ์ด์ผ-์ผ์ค์ฌ์น -๊ณ ์ก์ด์ผ (kong-pal-i-il-sam-o-sa-chil-go-yuk-i-sam).