As can be seen in the chart, the Japanese and American systems for counting higher numbers are based on the same decimal progression - powers of 10. (107 = 1+7 zeros.)
("power" is expressed in Japanese with jou: 乗 -- so, following the pattern, x の x 乗 -- 107 = juu no nana jou = 10の7乗 = ten to the seventh. "squared" (the second power), is often or usually said as ji-jou rather than ni-jou. 22=4, ni o ji-jou suru to yon ni narimasu or ni no ji-jou wa yon desu, two squared is four, the square of two is four.)
However, English counts sets of 1,000 (103 - groups of 3 zeros), while Japanese counts sets of 10,000 (104 - groups of 4 zeros). The English sets are divided into groups of three, 1s, 10s, and 100s, the Japanese, into groups of four, 1s (一 ichi), 10s (十 juu), 100s (百 hyaku), and 1000s (千 sen).
The major set in Japanese is 1,0000, 一万 (ichi man). 1,0000 万, the next set, is 一億 (ichi oku), 108, one hundred million. 1,0000 億 (oku) are 一兆 (itchou), 1012, one trillion. The trillions correspond to the Japanese 兆, except that Japanese continues on up into thousands of 兆, whereas English changes to a quadrillion. The Japanese division above 兆 is 京 (kei), above 京, 垓 (gai).
The major set in English is 1,000, one thousand. 1,000 thousands is a million, 1,000 millions is a billion, etc. The value of the prefix to -illion shows the number of sets of thousands (sets of 3 zeros) beyond the first 1,000. b(i)- (the prefix for 2) indicates a total of 3 sets of 3 zeros 1,000,000,000; tr(i), 4 sets.) Above quadr- (4), the prefixes are quint- (5), sext- (6), sept- (7), oct- (8), non- (9), and dec- (10).
| 一万 |
ichi man |
ten thousand |
| 百万 |
hyaku man |
one million |
| 一億 |
ichi oku |
one hundred million |
| 十億 |
juu oku |
one billion |
| 一兆 |
itchou |
one trillion |
| 千兆 |
sen chou |
one quadrillion |
| 一京 |
ikkei |
ten quadrillion |
| 百京 |
hyakkei |
one quintillion |
| 一垓 |
ichi gai |
one hundred quintillion |
|
