An introduction to Japanese - Syntax, Grammar & Language

5.2. COUNTERS 243

items”, but can also be used to ask ”how many years [of age]” a child is,

although only for young children: for children over nine/ten, the regular

question word ( / ) is used instead.

An example of use would be:

”There were 2 oranges left.”

It should also be noted that this counter can only be used for counts
from 1 through 10. Higher counting is not possible, so answers to
that involve an age over 10 years of age must necessarily use /
as counter.

• The Japanese currency

This counter is used for ￿, the Japanese currency. This counter has special

pronunciations for 4 and 9, and also has a special question word:

( ) ( )

An example sentence would be:

”This pen was 50 yen.”

Note the different readings instead of ” ” and

instead of ” ”. Also note that the question word for ”how

many yen” is actually the question word meaning ”how much”, a word

that can be used to mean three things (like ): quantity, duration

and frequency. Thus, the question

, ”how much do you

read”, can mean three different things, reflected in the possible answers to