Korean has two number systems. One is native Korean, which maxes out (apparently) at 99 and is used for more informal counting tasks. The other is the Sino-Korean set of numbers, which is used more formally for important tasks. Knowledge of both is necessary, but it’s important to start with the latter and worry about the former for another day. Perhaps the corollary of this is that native Korean is the tú form of numbers and Sino-Korean is the Usted form of numbers (e.g. unosted, dossted, tressted, cuatrosted, etc.). I can’t wait to tell the Cervantes Institute and the Royal Spanish Academy about that language innovation. They’re going to be so stoked.

Anyway, there’s really nothing super fancy about these numbers. I just have to learn them. For example, let’s count from 0 to 10.

Number Korean
0 영/공
1 일
2 이
3 삼
4 사
5 오
6 육
7 칠
8 팔
9 구
10 십

Of note: there are two characters for zero. 영 is more “zero” as a number whereas 공 is the zero you would say if you were reciting something like a serial number of a telephone number.

Sino-Korean doesn’t have the eleven-twelve weirdness of English or the once-quince weirdness of Spanish. From here, it’s pretty straightforward from 11-20 (starting at 10 in the following table to make it a little more obvious).

Number Korean
10 십
11 십일
12 십이
13 십삼
14 십사
15 십오
16 십육
17 십칠
18 십팔
19 십구
20 이십

A few things are worth emphasizing in particular about these numbers, more as a matter of pronunciation:

  • 11 (십일), 12 (십이), and 15 (십오) have a carry-over in pronunciation. For example, it wouldn’t be “sip-il” for 11. It would be “sibil.” It wouldn’t be “sip-o” for 15. It would be “sibo”. Carry over that ㅂ in those cases.
  • 16 (십육) and any number preceded by 십 have a special case for pronunciation. In this case, you wouldn’t pronounce 16 as “sip-yuk”. It would be more “simyuk”. That p-y combo becames more of a “m-y.”

Here would be 20-39. Again, the pattern is very clear. Be mindful in pronunciation of the carry-over for the 1s, 2s, and 5s and the special case of the numbers that end in 6.

Number Korean
20 이십
21 이십일
22 이십이
23 이십삼
24 이십사
25 이십오
26 이십육
27 이십칠
28 이십팔
29 이십구
30 삼십
31 삼십일
32 삼십이
33 삼십삼
34 삼십사
35 삼십오
36 삼십육
37 삼십칠
38 삼십팔
39 삼십구

Let’s further count by 10 from 40-90.

Number Korean
40 사십
50 오십
60 육십
70 칠십
80 팔십
90 구십

There are special characters for the bigger numbers. Briefly, of which we’ve been told to this point:

Number Korean
100 백
1000 천
10,000 만

The 10,000 marker is very curious if Korean is not native.

The year would be 이천이십육, by the way, and be mindful of the pronunciation of that 육 in that number!