Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters)

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - Printable Version

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Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - samesong - 2008-10-29

I've been stumbling upon how to properly conjugate counters for the past 6 years of my Japanese studies. In Japanese classes it was something that you were just told to "memorize", but conjugating counters actually does follow logical rules. I was thinking about trying to figure it out myself, when I came across a great entry in Wikipedia detailing how to conjugate them.

Take a few minutes, plug the proper conjugations into your favorite SRS, and save yourself years of frustration.

(end of public service announcement)

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - alyks - 2008-10-29

I blocked the English wikipedia =[. Is there a Japanese page that explains it?

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - samesong - 2008-10-29

There isn't a a table of euphonic changes like the English page has.

I suppose they already know how to properly count cats and carrots.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - wrightak - 2008-10-29

Quick bit of trivia for you, which most Japanese people don't know.

For counting animals you have two choices ～ひき　（e.g. にわとりが二匹いる） and ～とう　（e.g. 牛が二頭いる）

The question is which to use and you decide by comparing the size of the animal to the size of a human. If it's larger, you say とう and if it's smaller, you say ひき.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - vosmiura - 2008-10-29

Oh that's an interesting rule. I've only seen 頭 used with cattle before, and I've seein ひき used with large animals like horses, bears, elephants, etc.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - samesong - 2008-10-29

Hah, I just learned that about, 2 minutes ago from the Wikipedia article:

Quote:Some of the more common counters may be used instead of less common ones. For example, 匹 hiki (see below) is often used for all animals, regardless of size. However, many speakers will correct themselves and use the traditionally "correct" counter, 頭 tō, when speaking of, for example, horses.

I didn't know you compare by your own size.

It seems like a great setup to burn your fat Japanese friends though.

"Hey Toshiki, did you know that if an animal is bigger than you, you use 頭？ So for example, you would actually say 一頭 for a cow. *Look surroptitiously over to your fat Japanese friend*, ...Yuusuke, you can keep on using ひき though =)"

edit-- nevermind. I forgot Japanese people aren't fat Sad

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - wrightak - 2008-10-29

vosmiura Wrote:Oh that's an interesting rule. I've only seen 頭 used with cattle before, and I've seein ひき used with large animals like horses, bears, elephants, etc.

I read it in a (Japanese) book about counters so I'm fairly sure it's correct. Needless to say, I was bored and there was a lack of reading material at the time.

By the way, the comparison is with humans in general not yourself so I think that your joke wouldn't work so well.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - suffah - 2008-10-29

Whoa, samesong thank you.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - Tobberoth - 2008-10-29

Personally I never found conjugation a problem, the main problem is knowing the right counters for everything.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - amthomas - 2008-10-29

Interesting tidbit of info:
頭 is literally the same as the English counter "head". Ask a farmer how many cattle he's got in his herd, and the result will be (N) head of cattle.

Wiktionary claims that it is an "uncountable measure word for livestock", though I'm pretty sure I've also heard it used for elephants and horses and such, but I've never heard it used for pigs or alpacas or tigers, say.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - snallygaster - 2008-10-29

the euphonic changes are mostly intuitive once you've been exposed to them a bit (except for the exceptions, of course). More tricky for me is knowing whether I should use yon/shi, nana/shichi, ku/kyuu, ju/juu, etc. Although often either is acceptable. Yoji (４時) rather than yonji is the one that I was blissfully unaware of for god knows how long.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - Tobberoth - 2008-10-29

alyks Wrote:I blocked the English wikipedia =[. Is there a Japanese page that explains it?

Wha... Why did you block English wikipedia?

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - alyks - 2008-10-29

Tobberoth Wrote:
alyks Wrote:I blocked the English wikipedia =[. Is there a Japanese page that explains it?
Wha... Why did you block English wikipedia?

Waste of time in English. If I'm surfing, I want to be wasting time in Japanese.

I also block this site most of the day, also.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - mentat_kgs - 2008-10-29

Meh, they all sound so naturel after so little input. I wonder what will after a whole year of input.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - Serge - 2008-10-29

samesong Wrote:Hah, I just learned that about, 2 minutes ago from the Wikipedia article:

I didn't know you compare by your own size.

It seems like a great setup to burn your fat Japanese friends though.

"Hey Toshiki, did you know that if an animal is bigger than you, you use 頭？ So for example, you would actually say 一頭 for a cow. *Look surroptitiously over to your fat Japanese friend*, ...Yuusuke, you can keep on using ひき though =)"

edit-- nevermind. I forgot Japanese people aren't fat

Another thing that can be counted by 匹 or 頭 is the species of gaijin.

Ever come across バカな外人二匹? Or 外人二頭? :-)

The same goes for Chinese: 两頭老外

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - Raichu - 2008-10-31

samesong Wrote:I came across a great entry in Wikipedia detailing how to conjugate them.

Huh!? Oh wow thanks! I wrote that!!!

Of course the credit doesn't really go to me. I got most of the information out of my textbook. My contribution was to replace the hotch-potch of information that used to be on that wiki page with a systematic table and a table of exceptions.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - Garland - 2008-10-31

Quote:Waste of time in English. If I'm surfing, I want to be wasting time in Japanese.
I also block this site most of the day, also.

Great, I also suggest you wear an eye-patch and plugs in your ears whenever you go shopping, so that you can see no price tags in English.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - samesong - 2008-10-31

Raichu Wrote:
samesong Wrote:I came across a great entry in Wikipedia detailing how to conjugate them.
Huh!? Oh wow thanks! I wrote that!!!

Of course the credit doesn't really go to me. I got most of the information out of my textbook. My contribution was to replace the hotch-potch of information that used to be on that wiki page with a systematic table and a table of exceptions.

Hah, small world!

Well thanks for the great info on counters Wink

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - TerryS - 2008-11-01

Garland Wrote:
Quote:Waste of time in English. If I'm surfing, I want to be wasting time in Japanese.
I also block this site most of the day, also.
Great, I also suggest you wear an eye-patch and plugs in your ears whenever you go shopping, so that you can see no price tags in English.

I wish I could do that.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - alyks - 2008-11-01

Garland Wrote:
Quote:Waste of time in English. If I'm surfing, I want to be wasting time in Japanese.
I also block this site most of the day, also.
Great, I also suggest you wear an eye-patch and plugs in your ears whenever you go shopping, so that you can see no price tags in English.

But then I wouldn't be able to practice reading numbers as they would be read in Japanese.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - iSoron - 2008-11-01

alyks Wrote:But then I wouldn't be able to practice reading numbers as they would be read in Japanese.

You mean, ワン・ドル、ツー・ドル、スリー・ドル、フォー・ドル、ファイブ・ドル?

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - CaLeDee - 2008-11-01

alyks Wrote:
Tobberoth Wrote:
alyks Wrote:I blocked the English wikipedia =[. Is there a Japanese page that explains it?
Wha... Why did you block English wikipedia?
Waste of time in English. If I'm surfing, I want to be wasting time in Japanese.

I also block this site most of the day, also.

It's surprising how well this works. I am using a simple greasemonkey script to block sites at certain times of the day. Even though it takes just 1 click to unblock them, with the block there it really helps you stay focused on studying. I recommend trying it if you are an internet addict^^

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - Tobberoth - 2008-11-01

Is it possible to make a GreaseMonkey script which blocks ALL other sites than the one I'm visiting when I'm activly doing reviews? I often click an expired pile, do 5 cards and then check this forum or something else, which means it takes AGES for me to do like... 60 reviews. If I could block everything else just the moment I'm revieweing, I would do all the expired cards in one go in no-time.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - mentat_kgs - 2008-11-01

Can someone create a new thread to explain this greasemonkey thingie?
I'm also interested.

Take a half hour out of your life and learn this (counters) - alyks - 2008-11-01

There is already a thread, Mentat. Search "Greasemonkey" on the forum.