1000 in Japanese

Updated May 2026

Drop the ichi (1000 = sen, not ichi-sen)

NUMERAL

1,000

KANJI

HIRAGANA

せん

ROMAJI

sen

Counter-attached forms

How 1000 attaches to common counters. Each links to the per-counter deep-dive.

Yen

sen-en

Daiji formal form (for cheques and contracts)

Used on bank cheques and contracts to prevent forgery of the simpler kanji .

Real sentence examples

千円札を一枚ください (sen-en-satsu o ichi-mai kudasai): one 1000-yen note please.

千年の歴史があります (sen-nen no rekishi ga arimasu): it has a 1000-year history.

Pronunciation and morphology notes

One thousand is sen, not ichi-sen. Same ichi-drop convention as hyaku. Sound-changes in the thousands: 1000 sen, 2000 ni-sen, 3000 san-zen (rendaku), 4000 yon-sen, 5000 go-sen, 6000 roku-sen, 7000 nana-sen, 8000 has-sen (gemination), 9000 kyu-sen. 10,000 switches to a different unit: ichi-man. The daiji form 仟 is on cheques and contracts.

Related numbers

100

hyaku

10,000

一万

ichi-man

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