Questions tagged [counters]
助数詞. Suffixes attached to numbers to indicate what is being counted. In linguistics, these are sometimes called 'classifiers'. The combination of a number plus a classifier forms a type of 'quantifier', and the movement of quantifiers into other parts of the sentence is called 'quantifier float'.
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How to read the X in 5X4間?
A book about architecture I'm trying to read (it's a bit of a slog what with the technical jargon and such) contained this description of a temple building: 二重、初重５X4間、裳階 （もこし） つき、上重４X3間. So it's two ...
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When to read 一人 and 二人 as いちにん and ににん?
WWWJDIC lists いちにん and ににん as alternative readings of 一人 {ひとり} and 二人 {ふたり}, but I can't recall anywhere I heard those readings except when counting more than 10 people for example 三十一人 {さんじゅういちにん}. ...
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Counter for 熊 (bears): ひき or 頭?
While hiking I saw 3 bears, and I have heard a lot of people say ひき to count them. There was a mother and two small ones, if that matters.
But when talking about it I also have been told that 頭 ...
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ひき or 頭 for horses?
Initially I'd thought ひき is for small animals and 頭 is for animals that are not small ("big" animals) however EDICT (http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-bin/wwwjdic.cgi?1MUE%E3%81%B2%E3%81%8D) ...
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Temperature abbreviations?
A certain dialog in my book has a man describing the symptoms of his cold to the doctor. It reads thus:
医者：熱はありますか。
患者：はい、きのうから。夕べはぞくぞく寒気がしたので、高熱が出るんじゃないかとひやひやしたんですが、今のところ７度８分【なな・ど・はち・ぶ】...
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Is B2F, B1F, 1F, 2F, ... wasei-eigo?
While visiting Tokyo, I noticed that most levels were indicated by B2F, B1F, 1F, 2F, ... .
This doesn't look like the Romaji for -kai or -gai counter-words, which I assume would be chika ni-kai, ...
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Gregorian calendar year to Japanese era name, and vice versa [closed]
Just for fun, I'm curious about how native speakers do mental translation from Gregorian calendar year (e.g 2011) to Japanese era name 年号 (e.g. 平成２３年), and vice versa. Do you have special and ...
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Why is the correct counter for rabbits 羽（わ）
Why is the correct counter for rabbits 羽（わ）, the counter that is used for birds.
I figured it is because they jump, cause fly and jump are the same verb in Japanese, but then frogs are 匹.
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What is the counter used for doors?
This is from deceze, but what is the counter used for doors. Is it 枚(mai) or something else?
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Counter for chopsticks
Just curious about this one. I'm never sure what to say when I ask for chopsticks in Japanese. I know that "by-the-book", you can count them with ～そろい （揃い) or ～ぜん （膳）. So I always say 「お箸を 一揃い（...
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Is there a general counter word for objects that you can fallback on if you're not sure which one to use?
I guess we could use the native Japanese numbers, 一つ, 二つ, 三つ...but we'd run into a problem at or after ten (not sure how とお works — same for はたち).
Is there a general counter word that we can fallback ...
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List of Japanese counter words [closed]
What are the essential Japanese counter words?
For example -dai for machines, -mai for papers and stuff like that.
What else to expect/know?
Thank you
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