Traveling to Japan: Japanese Money & “How Much is this?”

Hello Everyone! Finally another blog post on Japanese Language/ Culture. This time, I am going to teach you how to ask how much something is in Japanese, as well as how to understand the response - Keep this guide handy if you’re traveling to Japan anytime soon, it will be quite useful!

First things first, when you hold something up and want to ask the shop keeper, “How much is this?” here is what you say:

これ　は　いくら　ですか?  Or “Kore Wa Ikura Des Ka?” 

** In case you are unfamiliar with how the Japanese pronounce the English alphabet, here is a more phonetic spelling for you “Co-ray  wa  Ee-coo-ra des Kah?” **


Congratulations! Now you can ask anyone how much something is. However, when they respond, you may notice they don’t say how much “Yen” it is, but rather how much “En.” That’s right, we westerners just refer to their money system as yen, but really there is no “Y,” it’s just En. 

Another random Fun Fact! I thought in Japan they referred to their country as Japan like we do, but it’s actually “日本” or “Nihon.” Really surprised me when I first found out.

Now, rather than teaching you the whole numbers system and how it works just to know the clerks response, I will teach you numbers 1-9 and the word for “1,000.” This should cover most of your bases for 90% of what you will buy.

1. “Ichi” 
2. “Ni”
3. “San”
4. Can be said as “shi” or “yon”
5. “Go”
6. “Roku”
7. Can be said as “ShiChi” or “Nana”
8. “Hachi”
9. Can be said as “Que” or “Ku”
10. “Jew”
1,000. “Sen”

Now, the formula is the same as English. So for Two Thousand, you just say the Japanese word for Two and the Japanese word for Thousand, so as you probably have guessed, if something is 2,000 yen, it will be said as “Ni Sen En.” Just put the pieces of the puzzle together. Additionally, If you are wondering why there are two ways of saying some of the numbers.. Well, so am I. That’s kind of just the way it is. Sorry!

Moving on to reading written tags on items or signs. Luckily for you, even though there are kanji characters for each number and they are spoken differently than in English, they are actually written in English. So a price tag will (99% of the time) say something like “5,000¥.” 

Therefore, all that’s left to learn is the conversion rate, and a trick for quick calculating in your head! So for most accurate results, multiply 5,000 by .0083, which comes out to $41.50 USD. However, the trick is, if you don't have a calculator on hand, move the decimal twice. It will be just slightly less than that number. So for 5,000 yen, it’s just a little less than $50 bucks. 

Lastly, It's important to know that Japan is still very much a cash society, so don't expect everyone to accept your card! More side notes, the after-tax price is what you see displayed. In Japan, it is required to show the tax-inclusive price. So don't worry about trying to add that in. It's a flat 8% if you're wondering, which will be increased to 10% in April of 2017.

There you have it, now you can ask how much something is, and know the response for anything between $10 - $90 USD. Don’t forget to say “Arigato Gozaimas!”