千せん

せ

ん

Common wordJLPTN5Freq.FrequencyTop 1,000

Meanings

1

numeric

thousand; 1,000

The basic numeral for 1,000. The reading ち appears mainly in compounds and counters (e.g., 千切る, 千代).

この本ほんは千せんページ以い上じょうある。

This book has over a thousand pages.

千せん円えん札さつをくずしてもらえますか。

Could you break a thousand-yen bill?

Usage patterns

〈数かず〉千せん円えん... thousand yen
このバッグは五ご千せん円えんだった。
This bag was five thousand yen.
千せん人にんの〈人ひと〉a thousand people
会かい場じょうには千せん人にんの観かん客きゃくが集あつまった。
A thousand spectators gathered at the venue.

Kanji

千thousand
阡thousand
仟thousand

Related words

万まんN5
千 is one thousand while 万 is ten thousand, the next major unit in the Japanese counting system.
百ひゃくN5
千 is one thousand while 百 is one hundred, the smaller unit ten times below it.
１いち万まん
千 means 1,000, one order of magnitude smaller than １万, which means 10,000.
１０００いっせん
千 is the plain, everyday way to say or write 'thousand', while 一千 (read いっせん) makes the leading 'one' explicit, often in formal or written contexts.

Don't confuse with

線せんN4
千 (the number one thousand) and 線 (line) are pronounced identically as せん, so listeners must rely on context to tell them apart.
仙せんN1
仙 (a hermit/immortal) and 千 (the number thousand) share the same reading せん but have completely unrelated meanings, so learners can mix them up by sound alone.
百ひゃくN5
百 means 'hundred' while 千 means 'thousand', so learners must be careful not to mix up these two order-of-magnitude numerals.

Written forms

千Usage100%
- せん
  Standard kanji spelling for the number 1,000.
- ち
センUsage<1%

Etymology

The kanji 千 is a pictograph originally representing a large number; the reading せん is the Sino-Japanese on'yomi, while ち is the native Japanese kun'yomi.

阡せん

Used in legal documents; not encountered in everyday writing.

仟せん

Used in legal documents; not encountered in everyday writing.

ち