At this point, I just have to say that I’m glad I’m not the only one with 10,000 yen troubles. Not that I have these problems often, but I’m relieved I’m not the only one with conversion anxiety!

That is why I say counting in English is much easier than Japanese because the 1,000 notation system is the most prevalent in all the world.

Teaching counting to my students, anything over ~1,000,000 in Japanese they have to bust out the fingers. And numbers over ~1,000,000 are extremely common in Japanese usage…

To greatly summarize, I teach them that if they can count to 999, they can count to ANY number in English. Each comma is simply assigned a counter: 1 comma=thousand; 2 commas=million and thousand; etc. I deliver it as XXX,XXX,XXX;
nani-nani-nani-MILLION-nani-nani-nani-THOUSAND-nani-nani-nani. The “sugoi!”’s and “kantan!”’s fall like rain.:lol:

Japanese IS easier for small numbers than English though. And counting small numbers in French is an exercise in insanity.

But despite all those years, I still have the unfortunate habit of converting everything roughly into dollars. Even when I’m speaking to people. It gets confusing when you say to someone, “Yeah, this usually costs hachi-man, but I picked it up for only $600!” Makes perfect sense in my own head.

I like to think I’m currency-ambidextrous.

I want a car with good miles-per-gallon consumption. But I wouldn’t know what the hell a ‘kilometre-per-litre’ means in the grand scheme of things.

I can tell the cops the robber was 5′8″ tall but all I know is my own height in cms and if you tell me yours, all I can do is sort of compare your number with my number.

I try to forget how much I weight in pounds and I’m blissfully unaware of it in kilos. Though I know that a pound of chicken breast is about 420 grams and I’m more comfortable in grams than onces in cooking. I couldn’t tell you whether a quart or gallon of milk is more or less than a litre or two litre carton.

I figure that 30C plus is hellish but I know that 74F is just perfect, 68F is still great, 62F requires a light sweater or jacket and 92F requires three fans, ice packs and lemonade and a serious rethink about relocating.

In short, I am a “Canadian of a certain age” (which remains the same regardless of Empirical or Metric conversion) who has managed to teeter and trip all over the mid-70’s measurement conversions taught in school.

Add to that to the fact that I’m the first generation of ‘French immersion’ students and I’m burdened with trying to remember what math formula names and theories are in English, how to actually write out dollar amounts ($.45 or .45$ or 1,098 or 1 098) and the complete mental block against some words (i.e. ‘comma’ is, and will always be, ‘virgule’ and ‘auto mechanics’ will always be ‘garagistes’).

Oh, and in French, ‘un milliard’ isn’t ‘one million’. Oh, no. It’s ‘one billion’.

I’m so screwed… .

Also because as Marie notes 1 man yen = $100 (and 1 yen = 1 cent) so smallish prices are fairly easy to convert too. I don’t have much of a problem converting computer/electronics prices (~20 man ) because you just knock the 0 off and that is the price in $1000s but the problem is at the level of car prices where you are in the hyaku mans.

The way I do it is to simply add a couple of 00s to the numeric price (so a car selling for 519 man is selling for $51900). For some reason this calculation is tricky (and worse IMO when you get so something like a house that is 5235 man)”

Yes, that’s pretty much what I meant to say! Fortunately I haven’t been in the position lately where I really was considering a big ticket item purchase. But on the rare occasions when people are discussing big numbers with me, it takes me a minute or two to properly grasp the amount in my head.

Where did I say the system was better?

I said: “I’ve never understood how the 10,000 yen note actually became a default tool for counting currency.”

And, yes, it’s when you mix the systems that things become confusing. I just think it’s really interesting that the 10,000 yen note is a default for counting currency, and people say things like “hassen man” or “hyaku man.”

I get what you are saying myl — I just wonder how it developed!

As for the absence of the metric system in the US . . . there was a period where you used to see distances posted in miles and kilometers in certain parts of the US when I was a child. I was certain that we would eventually adopt the metric system. I have no idea why we never did.

I THINK it is something like

Sing a song of Sixpence, a pocketful of Rye
Four and tenty blackbirds baked in a pie
When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing
Now wasn’t that a dainty dish to set before the King.

And the really funny thing about the USA keeping the “Imperial” measurements, was they changed them all. An English pint was different to an American pint. And don’t even bother thinking about all the thread and pitch lengths on nuts and bolts . . . .

Funny that they hold onto it so hard in the US, I wonder if they will ever go metric?.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sens%C5%8D-ji

in his words “they might find it interesting but they couldn’t understand its essence”..mono no aware..there is a better way saying this romaji way, but I couldn’t give a toss at the moment – the sublime arrogance of this Clown Ishihara…

remora.

It is still fresh in our minds that Shintaro Ishihara, the Governor of Tokyo, spoke ill of the way how the French people count using the system of residues divided by 20. But I thought he shouldn’t do that because we are birds of a feather as to counting.

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/10/14/021014crbo_books1

remora.

Unit of quantity in Japan : Kilo Gram, Meter, litter, Centigrade.

No wonder, the origin of English language is ancient German of Anglo Saxons (some words from Old Norse and later many Norman French). Will German people someday reverse figures ?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:500000000000_dinars.jpg

“Four and twenty blackbirds were baked in a pie, when the pie was opened, the birds began to sing, now wasn’t that a dainty dish, to set before the king.”

Perhaps this is why Japanese lotteries are so small. (Half kidding!)

Thousand = 千(Sen), 10 Thousand = 万(Man), Million = 100 万, Billion = 10 億(Oku), and Thank God, Trillion = 兆(Chou)

But vice versa is difficult. That’s why many Japanese have difficulty understanding very big number with lots of Zero.(They start counting numbers of Zero.) I assume Korean and Chinese use the same numeric system like Japanese.

By the way, some of the readers understand German or French. As you know they count differently up to 100. Especially German counting is sometimes confusing. If you(non German) hears “zwei und dreissig”(two and thirty) you need a moment to accept that’s 32 (not 23) until you get used to. And “quatre-vingt-dix-neuf”(four-twenty-ten-nine) is 99. Of course French people take it for granted.

Also because as Marie notes 1 man yen = $100 (and 1 yen = 1 cent) so smallish prices are fairly easy to convert too. I don’t have much of a problem converting computer/electronics prices (~20 man ) because you just knock the 0 off and that is the price in $1000s but the problem is at the level of car prices where you are in the hyaku mans.

The way I do it is to simply add a couple of 00s to the numeric price (so a car selling for 519 man is selling for $51900). For some reason this calculation is tricky (and worse IMO when you get so something like a house that is 5235 man)