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No, not at all like Japanese. You’d have a single indication of the order of magnitude of the largest digit, up front, followed by a string of positional digits, where you just say the syllable for 0–9 for each place, including zeros.

The Japanese version is basically like other languages (including English), just with slightly fewer special-cased names.




Oh.. wouldn't things like 1,000,001 be harder to say, then?


Yes, instead of “one million and one” (5 syllables) it would be 8 syllables (or maybe 9).

On the other hand, 1,762,354 would be the same 8 syllables compared to 18 syllables in the current system (in English).

It’s possible some shortcuts could be added for several zeros in a row if that ever became useful. Or if the speaker were willing to break it up into the sum of two numbers this number could be expressed using 2 syllables for the 1e6 part, then the word “plus”, and another 1 syllable for the 1 part, so 4 syllables overall.




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