U+56F2 CJK Unified Ideo­graph-​56F2

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In Japanese, counter words or counters (助数詞, josūshi) are measure words used with numbers to count things, actions, and events. Counters are added directly after numbers. There are numerous counters, and different counters are used depending on the kind or shape of nouns that are being described.

In Japanese, as in Chinese and Korean, numerals cannot quantify nouns by themselves (except, in certain cases, for the numbers from one to ten; see below). For example, to express the idea "two dogs" in Japanese one could say either:

but just pasting 二 and 犬 together in either order is ungrammatical. Here 二 ni is the number "two", 匹 hiki is the counter for small animals, の no is the possessive particle (a reversed "of", similar to the " 's" in "John's dog"), and 犬 inu is the word "dog".

Counters are not independent words; they must appear with a numeric prefix. The number can be imprecise: 何 nan or, less commonly, 幾 iku, can both be used to mean "some/several/many", and, in questions, "what/how many/how much". For example:

Some nouns prefer 幾 iku, as in:

幾晩？ iku-ban? "how many nights?"

幾日も行っていた iku-nichi mo itte ita "I was gone for many days."

Counters are similar in function to the word "pieces" in "two pieces of paper" or "cups" in "two cups of coffee". However, they cannot take non-numerical modifiers. So while "two pieces of paper" translates fairly directly as:

"two green pieces of paper" must be rendered as 緑の紙二枚 midori no kami ni-mai, akin to "two pieces of green paper".

Just as in English, different counters can be used to convey different types of quantity.

There are numerous counters, and depending on the kind or shape of nouns the number is describing, different counters are used.

Grammatically, counter words can appear either before or after the noun they count. They generally occur after the noun (following particles), and if used before the noun, they emphasize the quantity; this is a common mistake for English learners of Japanese. For example:

In contrast:

would only be appropriate when emphasizing the number as in responding with "[I] drank two bottles of beer" to "How many beers did you drink?".