Find OpenCourseWare with OCW Search. よろしく (^O^) LETS LEARN JAPANESE. Japanese Lessons. Japanese counter word. In Japanese, as in Chinese and Korean, numerals cannot quantify nouns by themselves (except, in certain cases, for the numbers from one to ten; see below).
For example, to express the idea "two dogs" in Japanese one must say 二匹の犬 ni hiki no inu (literally "dog of small-animal-count-two"). Here 犬 inu means "dog", 二 ni is the number 2, "の" "no" is a possessive particle, and 匹 hiki is the counter for small animals. These counters are not independent words and always appear with a number (or question word) before them. If the number is unknown, a question word is used, most often 何 nan, as in 何名様 nan-mei-sama "how many guests", or sometimes 幾 iku as in 幾晩 iku-ban "how many nights?
". Counters are similar in function to the word "pieces" in "two pieces of paper" and "cup" in "two cups of coffee". Renshuu.org - Japanese studying made for you! Japanese Study Help.