5.2. COUNTERS 245
half), and. When indicating actual counts of individual tatami
mats, such as when purchasing replacement mats or for outfiĴing several
rooms, the counter is used instead. The reason for this is that rather
than indicating surface measure, you are now counting flat, sheet-like ob-
jects, which must of course be counted using the counter for flat, sheet-like
objects.
5.2.3 Counters for living things
- Small animals and fish
This counter is used to count small animals. ”Small” should be taken with
a grain of salt, as this counter applies to cats, squirrels, mice, or fish just as
it does to great danes (a particularly huge kind of dog) or even moderately
sized alligators.
The pronunciations are:
( )An example sentence would be:”Not even a single mouse should be able to get in (here).”- Birds and rabbits
This kanji means ”wings” when pronounced , and as counter is used
to count birds. As a peculiarity, this counter can also be used to count rab-
bits (although is more common these days), because of an interesting
bit of Japanese history: from the 6th century until the mid-19th century,
Japanese people were – by decree – forbidden to eat meat. However, this
applied only to mammalian meat, and birds and fish could still be eaten. In
order to be able to eat meat anyway, people started calling certain animals
by different names, refering to them as birds of fish. Boars had become
”whales” (which were still considered fish back then), and rabbits became