Native Korean Numbers & Counters

The second system is native Korean numbers. You use these for counting things, giving someone's age, and telling the hour.

1 to 10

Number	Hangul	Romanization	English
1	하나	hana	one
2	둘	dul	two
3	셋	set	three
4	넷	net	four
5	다섯	da-seot	five
6	여섯	yeo-seot	six
7	일곱	il-gop	seven
8	여덟	yeo-deol	eight
9	아홉	a-hop	nine
10	열	yeol	ten

💡 Tip: Before a counter, 하나, 둘, 셋, and 넷 shorten to 한, 두, 세, and 네: 한 개, 두 명, 세 시, 네 살.

Counters

To count objects, use a number followed by a counter word. The counter you choose depends on what you're counting.

Counter	Romanization	Counts
개	gae	general items
명	myeong	people
마리	ma-ri	animals
권	gwon	books
잔	jan	cups / glasses

Native tens

From 20 onward, each ten has its own name. Watch out for 스물, which changes to '스무' before a counter (스무 살).

Number	Hangul	Romanization	English
20	스물	seu-mul	twenty
30	서른	seo-reun	thirty
40	마흔	ma-heun	forty
50	쉰	swin	fifty

Counting 11 and up

The numbers 11 through 19 are '열' (10) plus a native number: 11 is '열하나' and 15 is '열다섯'. The tens have their own names (20 is '스물', 30 is '서른'), and before a counter 20 changes to '스무' (스무 개).

100 and above

Native numbers are common only up to 99; from 100 ('백') on, you switch to Sino-Korean. So large counts are normally given in Sino-Korean numbers.