JAPANESE – COUNTERS – 助数詞 (josūshi)

Every language has a different way of counting objects; the Japanese use counters. They are similar to English expressions such as “a cup of ~”, “a sheet of ~” and so on. There are a variety of counters, often based on the shape of the object.

(from Japanese.About)

When using a counter, pay attention to the word order. It is different from English order. A typical order is “noun + particle + quantity — verbs.” Here are examples:

• Hon o ni-satsu kaimashita.
  本を二冊買いました。
  I bought two books.NOUN (hon) + PARTICLE (o) + NUMBER (ni) + COUNTER (satsu) + VERB.
• Koohii o ni-hai kudasai.
  コーヒーを二杯ください。
  Please give me two cups of coffee.

冊 – satsu – counter for books, e.g. magazines, books

杯 – hai – counter for liquid in cups, e.g. cups of tea, glass of water

YES, I REALISE THAT YOU’RE PROBABLY THINKING, AAAHHH THERE ARE GONNA BE LOADS OF THESE COUNTER THINGS!!!! and yes, sorry, there are. But if you’re really stuck and don’t know the counter or talking about something very generalised/unspecific you can use Japanese numbers (especially for amounts under 10). Also, a Japanese person is not going to judge you if you don’t know some obscure counter (e.g. 尾 – bi – is the counter used for shrimp, but I doubt even any Japanese person would know this counter unless they were a fisherman. Instead they would just use 匹 – hiki – the counter for small animals).

Also, there is a different word order that can be used instead of the order shown in the two examples above. This word order however places emphasis on the amount, e.g. I’ve had 4 cups of coffee today! The other word order is more common, and use that as a default:

*common word order*

ビールを二本飲んです。

biiru o ni-hon non desu.

I drank 2 bottles of beer.

*places emphasis on amount*

二本のビールを飲んです。

ni-hon no biiru o non desu.

I drank 2 bottles of beer.

In the next post I’ll give a list of useful counters and how to use them because some of them are irregular. YAY!

^_^