Anyone who’s studied Japanese for some time eventually comes up against the fact that when counting things, it’s not enough to be able to count to a hundred (or more). This will only get you so far. Fo you see, for different objects, one must also attach a unique “counter,” which varies depending on the object you’re counting. Even beginning students will soon encounter this, as they learn how to count days, or bottles of beer, or sheets of paper, etc. But there are a lot more where this came from. In fact, this page lists 509 counters, for everything from flower petals to poems to rosary beads! Chances are there even more out there that native Japanese speakers aren’t even aware of.
The image above was clipped from a sales insert distributed by the home-delivery grocery service we use, Co-op, and illustrates just some of the counters involved with food items. It’s for parents to use to review with their children (osarai means “review”). As it says, one can always get by using the catch-all hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu… counter, but wouldn’t it be better to learn the actual counters. Click on the image above for a larger one (it is large, 205K).
I’ve got maybe half a dozen counters down pat and can use them without thinking in the right situations–or so I thought. Some of these food ones surprised me. Why aren’t carrots and lotus in the ‘hon’ group like other longish cylinders?
Industry specialization and rivaly, perhaps. I can just imagine the renkon farmers getting together and deciding they need to differentiate themselves from the carrot farmers. Some marketing guy invents this new counter and there you go. Another thing to learn.
Maybe it’s easier to learn them all if you start when you’re a kid. Good luck, Kaika!