Learn Japanese and Pass JLPT-Japanese Steps of Grammar, Japanese counters

Level 4
Counters-mai, -hon, -fun, -nin

Verb-Formsどうし / Te-Formて‐けい / te-aruてある / te-iruている / Nai-Formない‐けい / wantほしい/wanto toたい / Shall we/Let'sましょう・ませんか / Modifying Nouns＆Relative clauseしゅうしょく / Adjectivesけいようし / Particlesじょし / Adverbsふくし / Numbesrかず0-10 / 0-1000 / Big Number / Countersじょすうしひとつ / Countersじょすうし‐ほん‐まい / Daysようび / Dateつき・ひ / Telling timeじこく / Period of time;Hoursじかん / This, thatしじご /Conjunctionsせつぞくし / Interrogative Pronounsぎもんし / Expressionひょうげん /

Counters of Japanese

There are two types of counters in Japanese language.　One of them,hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu type is a Japanese original counter and the other, ichi, ni, san type is Chinese one. Japanese type can be used independently used from 1to 10 only but Chinese type can be used number and counter together like following.

Japanese type---Three hamburgers, please. Haｎbaagaa o mittsu kudasai.
Chinese type --- Three hamburgers, please. Hambaagaa o san-ko kudasai.

ik-ko

ni-ko

san-ko

yon-ko

go-ko

rok-ko

nana-ko

hak-ko

kyuu-ko

juk-ko

Please tell me how many cups of coffe you drink or other items.

ko-hi- o nomimasu.

mayoneezu o kaimasu.

buta ga imasuka.

no-to o kaimasu.

Each object has a specific counter, -hon for long objects like pencils and bottles ,-dai for big machine like cars and computers so on. Japanese type replace Chinese type especially small objects. You can use hitotsu, futats, when you don't know the specific counter for the specific object.

-mai for paper, dishes.
-kai for floors
-satsu for books, magazines.
-hon for penciles, bottles.
-hun for minutes
-ban for nights
-nichi for days
-nin for people

Number	Things counter	Bottles counter	paper counter
1 ichi 2 ni 3 san 4 yon/shi/ yo 5 go 6 roku 7 nana/ shichi 8 hachi 9 kyuu/ ku 10 juu	hitotsu hutatsu mittsu yottsu itsutsu muttsu nanatsu yattsu kokonotsu too	i-ppon ni- hon san-bon yon-hon go-hon ro-ppon nana-hon hachi-hon kyuu-hon ju-ppon	ichi-mai ni-mai san-mai yon-mai go-mai roku-mai nana-mai hachi-mai kyuu-mai juu-mai

Japanese and JLPT