How to Read Roman Numerals?

Roman numerals are like letters in a special number language that ancient Romans used to write numbers.

Think of Roman numerals as blocks, each letter stands for a certain number, just like how 10 blocks make a tower of 10.

• I is like one block (1)
• V is like five blocks (5)
• X is like ten blocks (10)
• L is like fifty blocks (50)
• C is like hundred blocks (100)
• D is like five hundred blocks (500)
• M is like thousand blocks (1000)

When you see a number, it’s like building with blocks, sometimes you add them together, and sometimes you subtract.

For example:

• VI means 5 + 1 = 6
• IX means 10 - 1 = 9 (like taking one block away from ten)

So if you see XVII, that’s 10 + 5 + 1 + 1 = 17, like counting blocks as you stack them!