Welcome to another Modern Seoul Magazine Korean lesson. This time we are going to look at numbers, in Korean there are 2 main ways of saying different numbers and you use them dependent on the situation. We are going to look at the Sino-Korean style, Sino-Korean are Korean words that are words which use a Chinese base. These numbers are used when talking about Money, Measurements, Phone Numbers, Math, Days and most numbers over 100.

Here is a free downloadable and printable printout which can also be used as flashcards if you wish:

CLICK HERE for your free download.

The Sino-Korean number system is very simple and in-order to be able to count up to 99 you only require 10 different numbers, there are no teens or changes to the way you say a higher number, you just say the numbers as they appear, for example “Four” or “사” (Sa) added before “십” (Ship) or Ten becomes “사십” (Sa / Ship) which is the same as Forty.

If you wish to count above 99 then you just add “백” (Baek) which means 100, “천” (Cheon) which means 1000 and/or “만” (Man) which means 10,000. The same idea applies to these higher number as with Forty just add the number is front, for example “사백” (Sa / Baek) means Four-Hundred 400.

Good luck studying Korean and please come back soon for another lesson.

Su-Jeong
Modern Seoul Magazine
Advertisement