![]() I am here so you are not alone! Ippiki, nihiki, sanbiki: counting animals The meaning of the second hitori is ‘alone’, ‘solitary’. “Seven Samurai” by Akira Kurosawa is a masterpiece. Kurosawa Akira no “Shichinin no samurai” wa kessaku da. Hitori and futari follow the Japanese system ( hitotsu and futatsu), while the rest follows the Chinese system. You will notice that this is a hybrid between the Japanese and the Chinese system. Next time you go out with your Japanese friends, find a pretext to count “ hii, fuu, mii…" do it nonchalantly, and enjoy the expression of surprise on their faces! Hitori, futari, sannin: counting peopleĬounting people requires special words. ![]() Hii, fuu, mii, yoo, itsu, muu, nana, yaa, kokono, too.Ĭounting like this is a very “Japanese thing” to do. Hii, fuu, mii, yoo, ii, muu, naa, yaa, koo, too. When you need to count rapidly, for example when you are shopping for a 10-people party and want to make sure that you put enough frozen pizzas in the cart, you can use a variation of the standard Japanese system. The Japanese system can also be used for a simple count, just like the Chinese system. You can pretty much use the Japanese counting system with any object or concept, but never with people, animals, time and money. The following example should help you understand when and how these numbers are used. We’ll see some examples in a minute, but first let’s count. This is the native Japanese counting system, and it’s how you count real things. ![]() What’s the lucky number in Japan, then? It’s 八 hachi, eight! Hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu: concrete generic counting Some people take this very seriously, so you may want to be careful with these two numbers, especially ‘four’. This is why in most hotels there is no room 4. In Japanese, ‘four’ and ‘nine’ don’t fare very well. Stick with the first method and you’ll be safe.Īllow me to close this section with a silly mnemonic! There are many variants of it, this is my version of it. Ichi, ni, san, yon, go, roku, nana, hachi, kyū, jū. Ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hachi, kyū, jū. This means that you have two ways of counting up to ten. Number ‘four’ and ‘seven’ have an alternative reading of Japanese origin (instead of Chinese). Notice that number ‘nine’ can be pronounced kyū or ku. When writing these numbers, you can either use kanji or Arabic numerals. These are the words that you use when considering numbers in the abstract sense, for example in mathematics. This also constitutes the basis of the Chinese counting system. If you are playing 鬼ごっこ onigokko (hide-and-seek), or you are about to launch a missile, then this is how you count to ten. There are two numerical system in the Japanese language: Japanese has more than one way of counting. For many people, counting to ten is the first thing that they learn when approaching a new language.
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