Counting and numbers in Japanese

Factual Questions
1

Is there something about Japanese words used for numbers or for counting that is extra confusing for non-native speakers? Is it a language issue, or do they actually count and/or use numbers differently than we – well, I – do?

Bonus question: Does any other group of people use the same system? (If, of course, the Japanese really do use a different system.)

FWIW, I was reading some things today that led me to ask this. The text implied some sort of difficulty for Americans learning Japanese, but nothing was made explicit.

2

Yes, the “counter word” thing can be a pain for non-native speakers. I don’t know if any other language does this particular sort of thing. You need a different word to count different things. To say you have two dogs, it’s ni (two) hiki (I’m counting small animals here). Two people is “futari”, which is irregular, but three people is san (three) nin (Counting people). Obviously this allows for nuance, like asking a child if she has any brothers, and hearing “Yeah, I’ve got ni-hiki” as in two little animals.

There are a lot of counter words. Long thin objects are “hon”, thin flat things are, um, mai I think? There’s words for gods, abstract concepts, buildings, hanging scrolls, tatami mats, whatever.

3

Zsofia has it right. Have a look at this book Encyclopedia of Japanese Numeratives – the difficulties with numeratives (aka counter words or classifiers) are prominent enough that such a book is considered worthwhile to produce.

Quite a few Southeast Asian (e.g. Thai) and African languages (e.g. Bantu languages) use numeratives in their counting constructions. English does, too, here and there – “thirty head of cattle”, “two pieces of bread” – but its rarely obligatory. Questionable cases would be things like “ten pairs of pants/scissors/eyeglasses” vs. “ten pants/scissors/eyeglasses”.

4

Yeah, it’s really confusing. Not only are there different words, how the number part is pronounced can be different for different counters. It’s kinda like how you don’t say you have two papers, you have two pieces of paper. Or two cups of coffee. You wind up saying you have two animals of cat.

Here’s a page that lists over different counters and what you use them for. But, there are some relatively generic counters you can use in a pinch. And even the Japanese have trouble remembering all the counters. My Japanese techer showed us a Japanese games show where someone would name an object and someone else woudl have to count to ten using the correct pronunciation and counter. And a lot of people got it wrong.

5

It’s like that in Korean too. You’d say “du gae” for two things, “du mali” for two animals, “du myung” for two people… It gets confusing. There’s a separate word for trees and stuff too. It wasn’t until last Friday that I actually realized there’s nothing like that in English.

6

:dubious:

7

Well, to start off, there are two basic sets of numbers, from one to ten.

The more frequently used (and typically the first one learned in class):
ichi, ni, san, shi, go, roku, shichi, hatchi, kyuu, juu.

The other basic system that gets used with general objects and a few other items:
hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu, yotsu, itsutsu, mutsu, nanatsu、yatsu, kokonotsu, too.

Then, just to confuse things, people frequently use yon instead of shi for 4, and nana instead of shichi for 7.

Then you have the counter words, which change depending on what kind of thing you’re counting. According to my teacher back in college, some professor in Japan did some research on these and found that there were over 120 different counter words, although the average person doesn’t use or even know anywhere near that many (there’s a popular comedy show on TV here that regularly has a segment where the cast members and a guest play a game where each person names an object and the next person has to name the correct counter. If you make a mistake a sumo wrestler comes out and beats the crap out of you).

These counter words can also change slightly depending on the number, to make the sound flow more smoothly. For example:

Cars (dai): ichi-dai, ni-dai, san-dai, yon-dai, go-dai, roku-dai, nana-dai, hachi-dai, kyuu-dai, juu-dai.
Bottles (hon): ip-pon, ni-hon, san-bon, yon-hon, go-hon, rop-pon, nana-hon, hap-pon, kyuu-hon, jup-pon.

8

That’s the show my Japanese teacher showed us! Very weird. Everyone was dresssed up as Elvis with big pompadors and riding miniature motorcycles in a circle as they tried to name the correct counter. :dubious:

9

Another peculiarity of counting in Japanese (well not counting I suppose, but just numbers in general) is hot they represent large numbers.

In English our break down is:

Singles: 1,2,3,4 etc.
Tens: 10, 20, 30 etc.
Hundreds: 100, 200 etc.
Thousands: 1000, 2000, etc.
Millions: 1,000,000; 2,000,000 etc.
In Japanese:

Singles
Tens
Hundreds
Thousands
Ten Thousands (ahhh!)

The word for Ten Thousand in Japanese is: mon

Thus:

25,000 = 2 (ten thousands), 5 (thousands)

This can be fairly difficult to wrap your head around (not as bad as counters, I admit) until you internalize the mon

Test – How would you say 4,340,000 ?

In English we want to say 4 (of something), 340 (of something)
In Japanese we say 434 (of something).

Incidentally, there is a 10,000 yen bill in Japanese currency.

10

The costumes and sets are parodying the 80’s-style bosozoku motorcycle gangs (or at least the many movies and TV shows about them). The cast are all fairly established comedians, while the guest is usually a well-known actor or singer. On one segment I happened to catch the guest was sumo yokozuna Musashimaru. I wish I could have seen how their sumo actor tried to handle him, but they cut away to a different segment.

About the big numbers, it might make things easier if you look at western numbers as grouped by threes, while Japanese numbers get grouped by fours.

Ex: 9747219638265

West:
265 units +
638 thousands +
219 millions +
747 billions +
9 trillions

Japan
8265 units +
1963 man (ten-thousands) +
7472 oku (hundred millions) +
9 cho (trillions)

Unfortunately, when numbers are actually written out, they use the same three-digit comma separation as America, so you’re on your own to figure out how to read it.