1. Lesson 5
Grammar Notes
Counters

2. Counters
There are two important things you should know about counting items in
Japanese.
One, we use different number words as counters for different kinds of items; the
counter used for counting shirts are different from the counter used for counting
bottles.
Two, counters often come after, rather than before, the items counted in a
sentence.
(I’ll have) five bottles of beer, please.
biiru o go hon kudasai
ビール を 5 ほん ください 。
item number counter
シャツ を ３ まい ください 。
shatsu o san mai kudasai
(I’ll have) three pieces of shirts, please.

3. In this lesson, we learn
counters mai and hon on
the text book,
Besides, I ve introduced
kai for floors of a building
and satsu for books and
magazines in the chart as
right.
go-hon
There is also unique way of
counting without a counter
as the traditional Japanese
way for small things such as
hitotsu as one piece ,
futatsu as two pieces ,
and so on up to ten.