So I was on www.memrise.com… - Feed Post by Austin5
So I was on www.memrise.com learning some vocab and it said 10,000 was "man", but on here, 10,000 is "ichiman"
Which is correct?
Which is correct?
posted by Austin5
Comments 5
10,000 does mean "man". the ichi in "ichiman" means one x 10,000. so "niman" would be two x 10,000's or 20,000. "sanman" is 30,000 etc.
Ahhh, I see thank you!
Similar to "thousand" and "one-thousand" in English. "thousand" just explains the three zeroes, not the digits to the left of the comma.
I realize it's a bit late, but to add to this topic - unlike 百 or 千, 万 by itself is "incorrect," and 一万 is the proper way to say it. I don't know how true this is in everyday speech/writing in Japan, but two of my Japanese professors and my textbook all agreed that 一万 was the correct way to say it.
I've known this is the case for a long time, however I thought it might be interesting tonight to actually find out the reason why it's not just "man" but always "ichiman" for 10,000. I spent quite a while searching for the answer, but I didn't find anywhere that mentioned it.
I thought of a few things though:
・万 has other meanings besides its number, but 百 and 千 have only their number as their meaning. Other meanings of 万 are "myriad" (myriad is a word meaning 10,000 anyway) and "everything, all".
・万 can be used on its own as an adverb or prefix meaning "many, all", however this is pronounced "ばん".
・There is a prefix pronounced まん (満) in Japanese, but there isn't a prefix pronounced either ひゃく and せん. The kanji 万 is supposed to have been created as a simplification of 満. 満 means "full, whole".
So there's a lot more to the kanji used for 10,000, but I'm not sure which or if any of those points are the reason why it must be "ichiman" not just "man". I think it's possible that the idea of a myriad gets used for meaning things over than the literal number 10,000, so it needs to be said in a more specific way when you really do mean the actual number. I talked too long but I find this kind of stuff interesting. :P
Anyone know the actual reason? ^^
