Does everyone that learns Japanese actually remember all the counters.

21 comments

1. I’d say remember 匹,、個,、一つ 二つ 三つ。。。, 枚、冊、台、本、 人 for the most part, if you want to blow away the natives when you are here in Japan. But using the 一つ、二つ counter is fine for a lot of things.

2. Oh yeah, there are [a lot more](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-counters-guide/). You don’t need to know all of them (you can use つ or 個 for almost anything if you don’t know the specific counter), but you’ll read/hear quite a few of them in Japanese conversation and media. Just think of them as additional words/vocab that you will learn along with all the other words.

3. The ones you listed are all basic enough that most people should learn them, though I guess it depends on what your goal with Japanese is. If it’s fluency, there’s actually a few more that you also need to know.

   If it’s just “enough Japanese to get around the country on a trip”, you’re probably good as long as you know つ.

4. A lot of these have worked their way into my long term memory.

   They’ll become second nature after a while.

5. For me, it was easier to learn them as separate vocab items instead of all at once. So when you learn a new noun (e.g. 映画), you can look up it’s counter (in Japanese, searching 数え方 should work). Of course, there are a handful that are very very commonly used, and it’d be good to learn those ahead of time.

6. Yes. All the ones you quoted are essential. Also add 名 and 氏(for counting other people, more formal than 人), 頭(large animals such as cattle and horses), 両 and/or 輛(train carriages), 位(rank, position), 杯(glasses/cups of liquid), 戦(battles), 課(lessons and chapters (e.g. books)), 件(incidents, topics, matters, e-mails, phone calls), 通(letters, documents, e-mails), 発(blows, shots), 種類 and 種(types (of things)), か所(spots, places (e.g. in a text, on a wall)) 問(questions, exercises), 題(set of questions (on a test)), 足(pairs of socks, shoes, etc.), and there are even more.

7. People don’t learn all of them, because there are too many and some are obscure.

   Most people end up with a working knowledge of, oh let’s say 10-15 though.

8. You’ll find they’re not so difficult to remember when you hear and use them all the time. People don’t realize we have tons of similar words in English too, used to make countable forms of uncountable nouns, and I doubt they give you any serious trouble:

   * cups of sugar, flour, etc.
   * glasses of milk, water, etc.
   * head of cattle or lettuce
   * loaves of bread
   * pieces of paper
   * slices of cake or bread
   * bundles of hay
   * etc.

9. Yeah you get use to use them with practice not venting about how hard is to remember them

10. There’s actually a drinking game where you count to ten by naming different nouns, the next person has to use the appropriate counter. I ending up learning which counters were a problem for Japanese people. Kani is a good one – ippai, Nihai etc

11. Is it really that difficult, though? I mean in the end, they’re no different or harder to learn than any other word, and most fluent speakers will know well over 20,000 of those.

12. It’s similar to how we use slices/sheets/sets/packs and so on. And usually it’s confusing to learn all at the same time. You need to either picture what it actually represents, like a general shape, or simply learn at different time. For example, 本 might be used for cylindrical objects, because old books were like scrolls. Thus all similarly looking things are said with it, like branches or cords (one side is significantly longer than another).

    Btw, usually counters follow standard pronunciation rules, you can read it here:

    [https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-counters-guide/](https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/japanese-counters-guide/)

    So if you aim at learning a huge amount, learning general system first can help a bit, because even if we forgot something, we can recreate it following it.

13. It’s kinda like collective nouns in English. There are common pairs that children know, like “a pair of shoes” “a pack of cards” “crowd of people”. And there are ones that adults know, like “a panel of experts” “a pack of wolves” and “a bouquet of flowers”.

    But there are plenty of rare ones that adults who don’t read very much probably do not know, like a group of crows is “a murder of crows”, a group of fish is “a school of fish”, a group of notes is “a wad of notes”, etc.

    Its the same way with counters in Japanese. There are quiz game shows that are often include questions about rare counters/kanji that only highly literate people would know. But all of the counters that you listed are high frequency, so they’re definitely worth learning. If you just want to speak/write, then you can just use 個/つ for everything, and everybody will understand what you’re saying 100%, you’ll just sound a bit childish. However if you want to read/listen, then you’ll need to learn the other counters, because people will use them, and the pronunciation will vary depending upon the number and counter.

14. learn in context, see an animal? Use your biki counter and say something

15. Yes

16. Out of curiosity, for natives, is there a counter for counters?

17. >I’m reading my genki book and it seems it would be difficult to remember them all.
    >
    >個 counter for small items
    >
    >冊 counter for bound volumes
    >
    >台 counter for equipment
    >
    >匹 counter for small animals
    >
    >本 counter for long objects I know there’s more Than this too.Do people really remember all of these or just 1-3 and just role with it ?

    You’ll pick them up over time, no need to learn them all at once. It’s not as overwhelming as it may seem at first – after all, you use many more counters than that in English.

    Don’t believe me? See [this post](https://www.reddit.com/r/japanese/comments/v10jj0/comment/ias0dqn/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=web2x&context=3). 🙂

18. Is the の between the counter word and the noun required?

19. A common ways to use counters for humor: All kids under ten get counted by 一匹、二匹．Note the Kanji is also written as 疋 to the point that Japanese people do not notice which Kanji is being used.

    Also Japanese people often ‘get these wrong’; for instance by counting dolphins as fish, instead of large mammals, and it causes no confusion at all.

    Squid are counted two or three different ways depending on whether they are alive, whole, or dried. Octopuses use the same counter for when they are alive.

    Manta Rays are counted with the counter MAI for flat things.

    In general, counters are well-known for things people are familiar with, and a counter has to be learned for new things, and it is often not taught, but learned by exposure. New scuba divers will use the counter KAI, until they learn from the group of divers around them, that we count dives by tanks, thus we use the counter for tanks as long thin objects HON. So the number of dives is counted by HON, not KAI. Which again is not obvious, nor is it taught, but is universally learned by divers.

    We use counters in a sense in English, as we change naming on groups of things. Though we are not as strict, it still would cause confusion to talk about a flock of bananas, or a herd of books.

20. There are more counters than that. There are ways to count long objects (like flowers) or flat things (like paper etc).

    I think there are about 500. I have studied Japanese for 10 years and don’t remember them all and odds are, never will.

21. I wouldn’t bother learning more than 5 less you wanna translate but those are all fairly common