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Lesson 9

Lesson 9. Counting Money in Korean

The Korean currency unit is 원 [won] and it comes after an amount of money. The name that refers to the currency itself is 원화 [won-hwa] and 화 means “currency” here. You usually only get to hear or use the word 원화 when you are exchanging money or talking about the Korean won being strong or weak in comparison to other currencies.

In most everyday situations, you simply put 원 after a number to say the amount, and you don’t have to pluralize 원 like you do with dollars, euros, or pesos.

To count money, you only use Sino-Korean numbers.

1원 = 일 원
10원 = 십 원
100원 = 백 원
1,000원 = 천 원
10,000원 = 만 원
100,000원 = 십만 원
1,000,000원 = 백만 원 (The pronunciation becomes [뱅마눤] because ㄱ is followed by ㅁ.)

 

Coins and bills

  • There are 4 types of coins that are used now: 10원, 50원, 100원 and 500원
  • 1원 and 5원 coins were discontinued in 1992, so people born in the 80s or earlier remember using them when they were younger.
  • There are 4 types of bills: 1,000원, 5,000원, 10,000원 and 50,000원

Bigger amounts and shortened expressions

Once you get used to bigger units of numbers in general, counting bigger amounts of money is simple. Just add 원 after the number.

10,000,000원 = 천만 원 (10 million won)

  • In spoken Korean, you simply say 천만 원 without the word for “one”, but on a check or in contracts, to prevent forgery by writing additional syllables, you write 일천만 원 to mean 10,000,000 won.

100,000,000원 = 일억 원 (100 million won)

  • The number 100,000,000 can be called either just 억 or 일억 to be more specific, but when you talk about money, you need to say 일억 to mean exactly 100 million.

1,000,000,000원 = 십억 원 (1 billion won)
10,000,000,000원 = 백억 원 (10 billion won)
100,000,000,000원 = 천억 원 (100 billion won)
1,000,000,000,000원 = 일조 원 (1 trillion won)

In real-life conversations, people often omit a couple of syllables to say common amounts.

  • Dropping 원 at the end of big amounts
    • 일억 = 일억 원 (100 million won)
    • 삼억 = 삼억 원 (300 millon won)
  • Dropping 만 원 at the end of tens of millions of won
    • 삼천 = 삼천만 원 (30 million won)
    • 일억오천 = 일억오천만 원 (150 million won)