# 40자



## JeremySergendan

Hi everybody,

When you read 40자, do you say 사십자 or 마흔자?

The example sentence is:



> 40자 이내로 말해주세요 (Say it in 40 characters, please).


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## actively

Not an expert or anything, but usually even if you use native Korean numbers with a 세는 단위 (counting unit) - in this case
being (한 자, 두 자...) - after 20 it's really a toss-up between native and Sino-Korean numbers.

Most people would say 사십 자 though; it just sounds better.


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## JeremySergendan

actively said:


> Not an expert or anything, but usually even if you use native Korean numbers with a 세는 단위 (counting unit) - in this case
> being (한 자, 두 자...) - after 20 it's really a toss-up between native and Sino-Korean numbers.
> 
> Most people would say 사십 자 though; it just sounds better.



Thank you.


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## Yalli

we say "마흔자" only when we tell someone's age.


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## Rance

As rule of thumb, when the unit is from hanja, people generally use 일,이,삼....
For example, 우리 나이 43살은 만으로 치면 42세(歲)이다 .
Former would be read as 마흔세살, latter would be read 사십두세.
자 is 字, so 사십자 would be what people would say.

However, it's just a rule of thumb and there are no written rules you must follow.
For example, Korean generally read 12時 30分 as 열두시 삼십분, and rarely, if any, read as 십이시 삼십분(I personally never heard anyone reading this way).


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