Recently I’ve noticed a few mistakes I’ve been making in Japanese and I believe I’ve found the cause. I’ll use two examples, related to pets.
The first is how you count pets. In Japanese, there are “counter” words, which you append to numbers. 10字 (ji) means “10 characters”. 5個 (ko) means 5 small things. 7本 (hon) means 7 long things (beer bottles, trains, pencils). 3台 (dai) means 3 machines (TVs, cars). ４人 (nin) means 4 people.
There are lots for animals. 羽 (wa) is for birds (and also rabbits, as monks long ago were only allowed eat birds, so they started counting rabbits like birds so they wouldn’t feel guilty eating them), 頭 (tou) is for large animals (it actually means “head”, as in “head of cattle”), 匹 (hiki) is for smaller animals (cats, dogs, etc). The problem lies within hiki. I have no problem when using it to say how many dogs I see on the street, but when I’m talking about my own cats at home, I keep using “nin” (人), the counter for people. I clearly consider my own cats as people on some level so I keep making that mistake. (more…)
