The Nightmare of Counters

I find Japanese counters (助数詞 = joshūshi = "auxiliary-number-words"?) one of the more frustrating aspects of Japanese language.

It is really hard to find any clear guidance on them.

Japanese does not bother to distinguish much between singular and plural nouns. Instead, when it wishes to express measurable quantities of something, it uses counters. Counters are special words, to which numbers are prefixed, to make expressions of quantity.Thus, "二" (ni) means "two," and 羽 (wa) is the counter for birds. 二羽 (niwa) then means "two birds."

Let's say I want to say I saw two chickens. I saw is 見ました (mimashita). Chicken is 鶏 (niwatori). To say "I saw chickens [or a chicken]," without specifying how many were seen, you can say 鶏を見ました (niwatori wo mimashita) (the を [wo] is put after the word for chicken to indicate that "chicken" is the direct object of "saw"). So this phrase means, "I saw a chicken or chickens" without indicating how many. If you want to specify "I saw two chickens," you have to put in a counter for birds with the word "two" prefixed: 二羽 (niwa). So I saw two chickens is 鶏を二羽見ました (niwatori wo niwa mimashita).

Here's the rub. Different nouns require different counters. The counter for birds is 羽 (wa); the counter for small animals that are not birds is 匹 (hiki); the counter for large animals is 頭 (tou); the counter for books is 冊 (satsu); and so on and so on. There are hundreds of counters.

Now this wouldn't be so bad if there were some way to figure out what the counter for a given thing is. But it's often very difficult. There are general guidelines. For instance, long cylindrical objects like cigarettes or bottles use the counter 本 (hon). But these guidelines can be very vague. Trees, for instance, use 本 (hon) because they are notionally long and cylindrical, but, really, if no one had told me that, I never would have guessed. I tend to think of trees as inverted pears or overgrown roundish bushes, not cylinders.

The truth is, I have yet to find a good guide to counters. Instead, when I want to give the number some odd object in Japanese—let's say I want to say something as simple as "I had to read five essays today"—I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what the counter is; usually, I wind up asking a native speaker, who comes up with an answer (and who often answers with a demeanor that implies, "Isn't it obvious, you fool?").

This insane state of affairs needn't be. I mean, if you use a German, French, or Spanish dictionary, the gender of a word is included. Why not do the same with counters in Japanese? The counter-class of word is, in fact, a sort of gender. If every noun entry in a Japanese dictionary noted appropriate counters, the problem would be much alleviated. It is true that some words allow multiple counters, which would mean judgment calls would have to made about what to include, but it is just cruelty to give no guidance whatsoever.