The kanji for ten thousand is another with three strokes. In writing it marks the ten thousands place, e.g. 一万五千二百七十九 is 15,279. After that the placeholders are reused; for example is one million. Interestingly, the pedometer was invented in Japan around the time of the '64 Tokyo Olympics and called , which literally meant 10,000 step meter. This led to the widespread use of 10,000 steps as a daily goal which most pedometers still default to today.

on readings:
  • man
  • ban
kun readings:
    -
examples:
kyoman millions, immense amount
manpokei pedometer
mannenhitsu fountain pen (literally "10,000 year writing brush")
Man'yōshū Japan's oldest anthology of poetry
okuman chōja multimillionaire

links:
Wiktionary
Japanese homepage | top

Last ∆ on 11 May 2025 by Bradley James Wogsland.