2. Counters
There are two important things you should know about counting items in
Japanese.
One, we use different number words as counters for different kinds of items; the
counter used for counting shirts are different from the counter used for counting
bottles.
Two, counters often come after, rather than before, the items counted in a
sentence.
(I’ll have) five bottles of beer, please.
biiru o go hon kudasai
ビール を 5 ほん ください 。
item number counter
シャツ を ３ まい ください 。
shatsu o san mai kudasai
(I’ll have) three pieces of shirts, please.
3. In this lesson, we learn
counters mai and hon on
the text book,
Besides, I ve introduced
kai for floors of a building
and satsu for books and
magazines in the chart as
right.
go-hon
There is also unique way of
counting without a counter
as the traditional Japanese
way for small things such as
hitotsu as one piece ,
futatsu as two pieces ,
and so on up to ten.
