An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

228 CHAPTER 5. COUNTERS AND COUNTING

5.1 Counting

Before we look at the counter particles, let’s briefly look at counting it-
self. In the outline on Japanese, I mentioned three different ways to count
from one to ten, and this comes from the fact that Japan, while it borrowed
the Chinese kanji and readings, also had its own language prior to know-
ing anything about China. Not surprisingly then, counting was done with
completely different words in pre-China Japan. However, unlike this pre-
China native Japanese counting system, the Chinese derived series for one
through ten is reasonably simple:

number wriĴen and pronounced

1

, in formal writing.

2

, in formal writing.

3

, in formal writing.

4

• in the ”normal” counting series, this number can be pronounced
  , a native Japanese reading.
  5
  6
  7


• like for four, in the ”normal” counting series this number can be
  pronounced , also a native Japanese reading.
  8
  9
  10
  , in formal writing.

The reason why 1, 2, 3 and 10 have special formal kanji stems from
the use in legal documents, where changing an into a or into
was rather easy, while turning an into a or a into a was a lot
harder. There are similar counterparts for 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9, but these are
essentially never used: , , , and respectively. Larger num-
bers in the Chinese system are wriĴen either using Arabic numerals (like
1.890.298.345), or – when they’re decently clean or small enough to write
out in full – wriĴen in kanji.

Using kanji forms to create large numbers relies on a fairly simple
rule of composition, as you should be able to tell from the following exam-