Another Japanese 101

Ok. Been a while, I had something less educational to talk about first, but then today we learned how to count things in school and it’s so damn stupid that I have to talk about it. The less educational gonna be for later I regret.

So why the hell would I do a post about learning to count? It’s pretty easy no? 1 orange, 2 oranges, 3 oranges, 4 oranges and so on. But in Japan, of course, they can’t do something that easy. It wouldn’t be Japanese otherwise, no? So learn today that counting in Japanese is hard. Not because numbers are hard, but because counting must be half of the Japanese vocabulary. Maybe exaggerating a little, so let’s say the quarter. Gonna, maybe, understand soon.

So let’s say that you want to count how many people there is in a room. It will go like that:
1 person = hitori
2 people = futari (You don’t see between the first two? Me neither.)
3 people = san-nin
4 people = yo-nin
5 people = go-nin
6 people = roku-nin
And so on... Basically only the two first are different. Not that hard for a start. But in Japanese you can’t sheets of paper the same way you count people. So for thin things like sheets of paper, subway ticket and so on, you have to go:
1 = Ichi-mai
2 = Ni-mai
3 = San-mai
4 = yon-mai
And so on… Really easy. But then again if you want to count fruits, chairs, food it changes again:
1 = Hitotsu
2 = Futotsu
3 = Mit-tsu
4= Yot-tsu
5 = Itsutsu
6 = Mut-tsu
7 = Nana-tsu
8 = Yat-tsu
9 = Kokono-tsu
10 = To-o
Yeah for the tenth you change for no apparent reason. But there is worst and it is if you want to count long or high things like tree, cigarettes, and umbrella:
1 = Ip-pon
2 = Ni-hon
3 = San-bon
4 = Yon-hon
5 = Go-hon
6 = Rup-pon
7 = Nana-hon
8 = Hap-pon
9 = Kyu-hon
10 = Jip-pon

Ok so to make it simple. Depending on what you want to count the words gonna change. All of them, tho, are related to the numbers you want to say. That’s why you’ll see I, Ni, San, Yon... and so on. Tho, here I showed three. But there’s a lot more. Like if you count boxes it’s gonna end by “ko”. Cars, bicycle, bike and truck would be “so”. Little animals are with “hiki”, but that doesn’t include all little animals. For example, the eel have a word only for it, can’t remember it tho. Tofu also gets its own word. Days of the month usually end with “ka”. And it’s almost infinite.

Araki-sensei said that now Japanese people use about 20 of them. But actually for poets and writers you can find as much as 50 of them. So it’s actually a real pain in the ass to count things here. Like when I buy cigarettes I would usually say “futatsu Lark 12 kudasai.” And I didn’t understand why they would not understand. Today I learned that I should have said: “Ni-ko Lark 12 kudasai.” And one thing I learned over the last month is that Japanese really suck when it comes to guessing what you are trying to say to them. I don’t know why exactly, but I think it is simply cause there are so many exceptions and particularity in this language that you could as well say something like: “I’m gonna rape your children”, without knowing while you ordered some food. They are patient, but hell bad at guessing.

Ok that’s all. Not long for once. I just needed to get this out of my system. Cause it is really stupid in my mind. Well... stupid is a bit strong. This way to count is, at some extent, really convenient cause you could only say a number and people would know exactly what you are talking about. If you learned it since childhood it’s not so bad, but for me who is trying to learn as fast as I can in a short lap of time it’s really a pain. A whole big damn pain, yes.

Cya.