List of 7 Japanese Counters & How To Use Them

There is so much variation across languages that goes beyond simple differences in vocabulary. You may need to learn sounds that don’t occur in English (such as vowels with umlauts in German or tones in Chinese). You may need to restructure your sentences and use a different word order. And some linguistic concepts may only have loose parallels or may not even exist in English. One of the differences between English and Japanese that is sometimes overlooked is the usage of Japanese counting words, often referred to as Japanese counters. 

What are Japanese counters?

The basic Japanese numbers ichi, ni, san, etc. on their own only express pure numbers. They are sufficient for phone numbers and ID numbers, but they can’t be used to say you have a specific number of items. For that, you need to use a Japanese counter. Depending on the type of thing you want to quantify, you’ll use a different counter word. 

The need for counters in Japanese may be unintuitive at first, but it helps if you recognize that English also has counters! The most common English counter is “piece.” You don’t say “one art,” “two jewelries,” or “three papers” (unless you’re talking about assignments). Instead, you say “one piece of art,” “two pieces of jewelry,” and “three pieces of paper.” Other counters in English include “slice” (as in “slice of bread”), “glass” (as in “glass of water”), and the ordinal numbers (first, second, third, etc.)

Japanese counters are much more varied and cover many more types of items, but the concept is the same. You should assume you need a counter whenever you talk about quantities in Japanese.

How many Japanese counters are there?

The straightforward answer is there are around 500 counters in Japanese. The sheer number of counters may make you wonder, “How long does it take to learn Japanese?” But counters don’t need to be a sticking point. For the majority of situations, knowing just a few counters will suffice for clear communication.

Japanese counters chart

This chart summarizes the different counters that will be introduced in this article.

~Tsu counter: the most general Japanese counter

The most flexible—and thus the most useful—Japanese counter is colloquially referred to as the tsu counter. This is because almost all its words end with the hiragana つ (tsu).

You can reasonably use the tsu counter with any inanimate object. This includes intangible things like ideas and problems. It’s also the standard counter used at restaurants when ordering food in Japanese.

The main downside of the tsu counter is that the quantities sound entirely different from the basic Japanese numbers. You’ll mostly have to disregard what you’ve learned about Japanese numbers when learning this new system. But you can practice keeping all your pronunciations straight in Rosetta Stone tutoring sessions with expert Japanese speakers. 

~Tsu counter chart

The tsu counter only covers the numbers 1-10, which are presented in this chart. If you’re unsure about the pronunciation of a word, check out our Japanese pronunciation guide.

~Tsu counter example sentences

When using a tsu counter in a sentence, there are two patterns:

• [tsu counter word] + [no particle] + [thing] + [remainder of the sentence]
• [thing] + [particle (usually ga or o)] + [tsu counter word] + [remainder of the sentence]

To say, “I bought two suitcases,” these are your options:

• futatsu no sūtsūkēsu o kaimashita (二つのスーツケースを買いました)
• sūtsūkēsu o futatsu kaimashita (スーツケースを二つ買いました)

Although the first pattern may be more intuitive from an English-speaking background, since the number precedes the item as in English, the second pattern is more commonly used in Japanese.

~Nin counter: the Japanese people counter

Since people are not objects, you’ll want to know how to appropriately count them so as to not offend anyone! The people counter uses the kanji meaning “person,” which looks like 人. Be careful though: The pronunciation of this character changes based on context.

For the most part, pronouncing this Japanese counter is just the basic Japanese number + nin. However, “one person” and “two people” are both irregular words. You’ll notice that they do resemble the corresponding tsu counter (one item = hitotsu and one person = hitori). “Four people” is also technically different, but the alteration is not very noticeable.

~Nin counter chart

For any number of people above ten, just follow the rules for larger numbers and add nin. (Numbers ending in four will have the altered pronunciation, such as 34 people = san juu yonin.)

~Nin counter example sentences

In a sentence, the pattern for the nin (人) counter is essentially th