Categories: Learn Korean

Learning 2 Types of Korean Numbers and The Differences of The Usages

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

Image Source: BangtanTV Facebook

Native Korean system is counted from:
ํ•˜๋‚˜ (hana) 1
๋‘˜ (dul) 2
์…‹ (set) 3
๋„ท (net) 4
๋‹ค์„ฏ (daseot) 5
์—ฌ์„ฏ (yeoseot) 6
์ผ๊ณฑ (ilgob) 7
์—ฌ๋Ÿ (yeodeol) 8
์•„ํ™‰ (ahob) 9
์—ด (yeol) 10
์Šค๋ฌผ (seumul) 20
์Šค๋ฌผํ•˜๋‚˜ (seumul-hana) 21
์Šค๋ฌผ๋‘˜ (seumul-dul) 22
โ€ฆ.
์„œ๋ฅธ (seoreun) 30
๋งˆํ” (maheun) 40
์‰ฐ (swin) 50
์˜ˆ์ˆœ (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

Image Source: Learn Korean in Korea YouTube

Sino-Korean system set covers more numbers than Native Korean one. However, itโ€™s 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
์œก (yuk) 6
์น  (chil) 7
ํŒ” (phal) 8
๊ตฌ (gu) 9
์‹ญ (sib) 10
์‹ญ์ผ (sibil) 11
โ€ฆ.
์ด์‹ญ (isib) 20
์ด์‹ญ์ผ (isib-il) 21
โ€ฆ.
์‚ผ์‹ญ (samsib) 30
์‚ฌ์‹ญ (sasib) 40
์˜ค์‹ญ (osib) 50
โ€ฆ.
๋ฐฑ (baek) 100
์ฒœ (cheon) 1000
๋งŒ (man) 10.000
์‹ญ๋งŒ (simman) 100.000
๋ฐฑ๋งŒ (baengman) 1.000.000
์ฒœ๋งŒ (cheonman) 10.000.000
์–ต (eok) 100.000.000
Etc.

3. Native Korean System to Determine Quantity

Image Source: ismusic YouTube

Native Korean Numbers can be used to determine the quantity of particular objects and also the number of people, animals, or plants. Letโ€™s see the examples in sentences below:

์–ด๋จธ๋‹ˆ๋Š” ๋‹น๊ทผ ์„ธ ๊ฐœ ์‚ฝ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค ์–ด๋จธ๋‹ˆ๋Š” ๋‹น๊ทผ ์„ธ ๊ฐœ ์‚ฝ๋‹ˆ๋‹ค (Eomeoninen danggeun se gae samnida) -> Mother buys 3 carrots
์ €๋Š” ๊ณ ์–‘์ด ์•„ํ™‰ ๋งˆ๋ฆฌ ์žˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค (Jeoneun goyangi ahop mari isseumnida) -> I have 9 cats
๋ช‡ ๋ช… ์žˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๊นŒ? ๋‘ ๋ช… ์žˆ์Šต๋‹ˆ๋‹ค (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: ํ•˜๋‚˜ -> ํ•œ , ๋‘˜ -> ๋‘ , ์…‹ -> ์„ธ , ์Šค๋ฌผ -> ์Šค๋ฌด.

4. Native Korean System for Counting Age

Image Source: SBS Entertainment YouTube

We use Native Korean numbers to express someoneโ€™s 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:

์ €๋Š” ์Šค๋ฌผ์—ฌ๋Ÿ ์‚ด์ž…๋‹ˆ๋‹ค (Jeoneun semul-yeodeol sarimnida) -> I am 28 years old.
๊ทธ๋…€๋Š” ์Šค๋ฌผํ•œ ์‚ด์ž…๋‹ˆ๋‹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. Letโ€™s check the example in the sentences below:

์•„๋ฒ„์ง€ ์–ธ์ œ ๊ฐ‘๋‹ˆ๊นŒ? 11์›” 24์ผ์— ๊ฐ‘๋‹ˆ๋‹ค (Abeohi eonje kamnikka? Sibil-wol isibsa-ire kamnida) -> When does father go? Father goes in November 24.
10:45:8 -> ์—ด ์‹œ ์‚ฌ์‹ญ์˜ค ๋ถ„ ํŒ” ์ดˆ (yeol si sasib-o bun phal cho). Donโ€™t forget to add the adverbs like ์‹œ (si) for hours, ๋ถ„ (bun) for minutes, and ์ดˆ (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. Letโ€™s find it in an example below:
0821-3547-9623 -> ๊ณตํŒ”์ด์ผ-์‚ผ์˜ค์‚ฌ์น -๊ณ ์œก์ด์‚ผ (kong-pal-i-il-sam-o-sa-chil-go-yuk-i-sam).

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