USING JAPANESE COUNTERS

The counters are used to indicate the numbers in which specific things are present.

Different counters are used to indicate different objects.

Every counter has their own question word, and the Kanji ‘何’ is used to represent ‘what’.

JAPANESE COUNTER FOR PEOPLE 人

Here we go for our very first basic Japanese counter. You might need to use this one very often.

Be careful of the numbers indicating one person and two people as they use the Native Japanese reading.

JAPANESE COUNTER FOR THIN & FLAT OBJECTS 枚

In a company, you will use this counter whilst making copies of a document or when you go to a movie and want to buy tickets.

This counter is used for things like:

JAPANESE COUNTER FOR LONG & THIN OBJECTS 本

This is one of the most used counters in Japanese language. It is used to count cylindrical objects which are long and thin.

You can use this counter with:

• えんぴつ aenpitsu : Pencil
• き ki : Tree
• バナナ banana : Banana

JAPANESE COUNTER FOR FREQUENCY 回

This counter is used to indicate the number of times a certain action happened.

It is also used to state how many times a certain event has occurred or will occur.

GENERAL JAPANESE COUNTERS

つ is the last counter we are going to study in this article. This one is a bit different from above counters.

For this, you’ll have to recall the Native Japanese Numbers you practised in our Japanese numbers lesson. Even while learning those numbers, we use them with this counter ‘つ’.

Once you have the basic idea, you can create these tables on your own. To practice, some more counters are:

Note:

For 20 years old (二十歳), the counter used is ‘はたち’ (hatachi) instead of ‘にじゅうさい’ ‘ni jyuu sai’.

We will learn to use these counters in a sentence while learning the basic sentence structure. 

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SIMILAR RESOURCES

Want to learn more? Check out these other free resources:

• Learn the most common measure words in Mandarin
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• Learn the most common measure words in Vietnamese

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MORE FREE LESSONS

• Hiragana

  -

• Katakana

  -

• Basic sentence structures

  Subject + は + Object + です

• Present tense in Japanese

  食べる → 食べます

• Past tense in Japanese

  Verb + た

• Continuous tense (て形 te form)

  Verb + て te

• Negative sentences in Japanese

  Subject + Object + ではありません

• Japanese honorifics

  お / ご + します

• Dates in Japanese

  Year + 年 + Month + 月 + Day + 日

• Telling time in Japanese

  Number + 時

• How to count in Japanese

  -

• Introduction to 12 Japanese counters

  Number + Counter

• Using ii-adjectives and na-adjectives

  Adjective + Noun + です

• How to use adverbs in Japanese

  Remove い + Add く

• Plain forms verbs

  Phrase + です / だ

• Making basic comparisons in Japanese

  A (noun) + のほうが + B

• Asking questions in Japanese

  いつ, 何時, なん, いくら, どう, どなた

• Introduction to Japanese particles

  Topic + は

• Object particle を

  Object + を

• Subject particle が

  Subject + が

• Possessive particle の

  Noun 1 + の + Noun 2

• Adjective particle が

  Subject + が + adjective

• Topic particle は

  Topic + は

• Location particles に and で

  Location + に

• Direction particles に and へ

  Noun + に

• Japanese prepositions: in, at, on

  [Object or Person] + うしろに + [Reference Point]

• How to make the Japanese Te form (て)

  ある → あって

• Connecting sentences with て form

  V te-form 1, V te-form 2, ~

• How to say "with" with と, 一緒に & と共に

  Noun + と

• How to say "and" with と & し

  Noun 1 + と + Noun 2

• How to say "because" with から, ので & more

  なぜなら + Phrase + から / ので

• This & that with これ, それ and more

  これ / それ / あれ + は何ですか?

• Expressing emphasis in Japanese

  とても + Adjective / Verb

• Expressing together in Japanese

  Subject + (と)一緒に + Verb

• Give & ask for directions in Japanese

  これ + Noun

• Relative quantities in Japanese

  -

• Expressing frequency in Japanese

  いつも + verb phrase