“Survival Japanese” from Tuttle says that for numbers under 11 there are two systems, essentially Japanese and Chinese. The “Japanese” list starts hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu (sorry, my work keyboard isn’t set up for kana), and the “Chinese” list starts ichi, ni, san.
Now, I’m a beginner but I do watch anime with the subtitles while listening as much as possible to the voice actors. In the course of many, many anime I have heard a lot of countdowns and similar. As far as I can tell every one of them has ended shi, ni, ichi. But the book says that these Chinese numbers are almost always used for numbers under 9.
In real life Japan, which set is actually more common?
by nagora