For some reason, the number 3, 6 and 8, some time 1 and 10 always get a special pronunciation when used for counting something.
Example: 三百 六百 八百 三階 六階 八階,…
I’m curious as to why that is ? Is this a cultural thing or the Japanese just like it that way ? Btw i’m not very good at English so I hope you still understand my question
3 comments
In French there a term for a similar phenomena where the article and a vowel melt together to make the word easier to say. We have this in English too – thEE elephant and not thUH elephant, but thUH TV.
Anyway, い and う sounds are generally weak, which is why they routinely disappear in some cases. This means in some words, they’ll get mashed into the next consonant sound and draw it out. “Ichi hon” becomes “ippon,” and so on.
As for 3, the final nasal んin 3 will sometimes make the following unvoiced consonant into a voiced one. So “san hon” becomes “sanbon.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/rendaku/
https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-counters-guide/