Counters

5.3. Counters

5.3.1. Basic counters

To count things in Japanese, you cannot put nouns immediately after a number. Counters, which are added after numbers, are necessary. Do you think it is strange? English also has some counters for uncountable nouns. For instance, you would say two cups of water, ten pieces of paper, and fifty head of cattle. Japanese nouns resemble English uncountable nouns.

There are three basic counters.

Category	Counter		Description
Category	Hiragana	Phonemes	Description
human		/ni'N/	human beings
animate		/hi'ki/	life that can move, such as animals and protists, excluding human beings
inanimate		/ko/	life that cannot move, such as plants and fungi, and non-life including abstract concepts

Before counting things with counters, I'd like to introduce the genitive marker

/no/, which is similar to the English suffix 's and the English word of. The word

/no/ is a postposition. Postpositions are suffixes that add grammatical functions to nouns. They are similar to prepositions in English, but the order of words are opposite, as the name implies. The order of words for

/no/ is the same as that for 's, so A's B is the same as A

B, and A of B is the same as B

A.

It is important to know that phrases which add information to a main phrase are always placed before the main phrase in Japanese. This is a consistent rule with no exception. Linguists call it head-last. English is a head-first language, where a main phrase is placed before additional phrases, but it is not so consistent as Japanese. That-clauses and preposition phrases are good examples of the head-first rule of English; both a dog that is white and a dog with white hair are dogs. But adjectives break the rule as they are placed before a main phrase. A white dog is a kind of dog, not a kind of whiteness.

Let's get back to

/no/. Here is an example:

Hiragana:
Phonemes:	ne'	ko	no	(space)	mi	mi'
Structure:	noun (cat)		genitive marker		noun (ear)
Meaning:	a cat's ears

Japanese doesn't care much about singular, plural, definite, or indefinite, so the example can mean any combination of either a cat, the cat, cats, or the cats and either an ear, the ear, ears, or the ears. Anyway, the phrase means a kind of ear, because of the head-last rule.

Now that you know

, you can count things with counters.
Put

after counters like this:

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

sa'

(space)

ne'

Structure:

noun
(three)

noun
(counter)

genitive
marker

noun
(cat)

Meaning:

three cats

Since cats are animals, the counter for cats is

/hi'ki/. The Japanese word for three is

/saN/. The phoneme modification rule of small numbers is applied to counters, so the /saN/ changes /h/ in the /hi'ki/ into /b/. The result is

/sa'Nbiki/.

The counter

/ni'N/ is not used for counting a person or two. There are other words for one person and two people.

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

to'

Meaning:

one person

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

ri'

Meaning:

two people

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

ni'

Meaning:

three people (three + counter)

Example:

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

ri'

(space)

me'

Structure:

noun
(two people)

genitive
marker

noun
(daughter)

Meaning:

two daughters

5.3.2 Additional counters

The three basic counters you have just learned are not all counters Japanese has. Here is a list of important additional counters.

Category	Subcategory	Counter		Description
Category	Subcategory	Hiragana	Phonemes	Description
animate	large animals		/to'u/	animals larger than human beings
animate	birds		/wa/	birds
inanimate	long things		/ho'N/	things that have length - pens, ropes, trees, movies, programs, etc.
	thin things		/ma'i/	pieces of paper, leaves, plates, tickets, etc.
	books		/sa'tu/	books, magazines, etc.
	machines		/da'i/	cars, televisions, etc.
	ships		/se'ki/	ships
	cups of liquid		/ha'i/	same as the English counter cup (cups of water, cups of tea, etc.)

Don't be afraid of so many counters. Using the additional counters is better for the subcategories listed above, but using the three basic counters is always understandable.

The subcategories for the additional counters are not strict. Do you categorize sheep in large animals? In fact, both

/to'u/ and

/hi'ki/ work well in this case. Penguines are counted with

/wa/ because they are birds, but some people use

/hi'ki/ for them because they don't fly. Your impression decides which counter to use.

Examples:

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

(space)

Structure:

noun
(five)

noun
(counter)

genitive
marker

noun
(cherry tree)

Meaning:

five cherry trees

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

ni'

(space)

tya

Structure:

noun
(two)

noun
(counter)

genitive
marker

noun
(green tea)

Meaning:

two cups of green tea

5.3.3 Continuum counters

Continuum, which cannot be measured only by integer, always needs appropriate units in Japanese as well as in English. Length is a good example of continuum, because it cannot be measured without using a unit, and it can have a decimal value. Japan uses the metric system for scientific values.

Category	Subcategory	Counter		Description
Category	Subcategory	Hiragana	Phonemes	Description
continuum	length		/meetoru/	meter
			/ki'ro/	1 kilometer = 1000 meters Abbreviation of /kirome'etoru/.
			/mi'ri/	1 millimeter = 1/1000 meter Abbreviation of /mirime'etoru/.
			/se'Nti/	1 centimeter = 1/100 meter Abbreviation of /seNtime'etoru/.
	mass		/ki'ro/	1 kilogram = 1000 grams Abbreviation of /kirogu'ramu/.
			/guramu/	gram
			/to'N/	1 metric ton = 1000 kilograms
	volume		/riQtoru/	1 litter = 1000 cubic centimeters
	temperature		/do/	degree centigrade
	money		/e'n/	Japanese yen (not /ye'n/ but /e'n/ !)
			/do'ru/	American dollar
			/po'Ndo/	British pound

Example:

Hiragana:

Phonemes:

yo'

(space)

Structure:

noun
(four)

noun
(counter)

genitive
marker

noun
(iron)

Meaning:

four metric tons of iron

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