Indonesian

Counting from 1,000 to the Billions in Indonesian

Numbers in millions are very often used in Indonesia—because it deals with money. Like South Korean Won, the Indonesian currency often deals in the millions. As of early 2020, 1,000 United States Dollars is equivalent to around 11 million in Indonesian Rupiah. So you better learn how to count in the millions in Indonesian because we're talking about money here!

Counting from 1,000 to the Billions in Indonesian

Published by Ryan from LingoNomad

Featured article photo: Jawa Tengah, Indonesia by Samuel Silitonga (CC0 Licensed)

This is the third post of the three-part blog post of how to count in Indonesian. Be sure to check out how to count from 0 to the hundreds before going through the lesson below! :)

Counting Thousands → ... + Ribu + (...)

To count in the thousands, simply combine what you have known from counting from 0 to the hundreds in Indonesian and add the word Ribu.

e.g. 5,000 'Lima ribu'
e.g. 12,000 'Dua belas ribu'
e.g. 512,000 'Lima ratus dua belas ribu'

An exception for this is the word for 1,000, which is Seribu instead of Satu Ribu.

e.g. 1,001 'Seribu satu'
e.g. 1,011 'Seribu sebelas'
e.g. 1,111 'Seribu seratus sebelas'

Other examples:

e.g. 234,000 'Dua ratus tiga puluh empat ribu'
e.g. 567,890 'Lima ratus enam puluh tujuh ribu delapan ratus sembilan puluh'

Counting Millions → ... + Juta + (...)

The word for 'million' in Indonesian is juta and its usage is similar to how you'd use the word ribu. Let's explore some examples.

e.g. 1,000,000 'Satu juta'
e.g. 3,000,000 'Tiga juta'
e.g. 10,000,000 'Sepuluh juta'
e.g. 50,700,900 'Lima puluh juta tujuh ratus ribu sembilan ratus'
e.g. 864,200,000 'Delapan ratus enam puluh empat juta dua ratus ribu'

Counting Billions → ... + Milyar + (...)

Being a millionaire in Indonesia isn't a big deal because the currency makes it easy to become one. But being a billionaire in Indonesia, that's definitely a different story.

e.g. 1,000,000,000 'Satu milyar'
e.g. 14,000,000,000 'Empat belas milyar'
e.g. 82,000,600,000 'Delapan puluh dua milyar enam ratus ribu'

Your Turn

Why don't you practice writing out these numbers in the comment section below? I'll make corrections!

1,025
320,900
7,000,506
54,000,103
9,500,000,000

Final Review

If you have gone through all three of my blog posts on how to count in Indonesian, you should now know how to count from 0 to the Billions! Here's a summary of the numbers you should remember:

0 'Nol / Kosong'
1 'Satu'
2 'Dua'
3 'Tiga'
4 'Empat'
5 'Lima'
6 'Enam'
7 'Tujuh'
8 'Delapan'
9 'Sembilan'
10 'Sepuluh'

11 'Sebelas'
12–19: '... + Belas'
20–99: '... + Puluh + (...)'

... Hundred '... Ratus'
... Thousand '... Ribu'
... Million '... Juta'
... Billion '... Milyar'

Want More Practice in Indonesian?

IndonesianPod101 offers audio and video lessons with native speakers to help you learn Indonesian effectively from Beginner, Upper Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced levels to practice on listening, vocabulary lists, and grammar pointers to fast track your goal in becoming a pro in Indonesian!