The Japanese Counting System You've Never Heard About
If you've studied even just the basics of Japanese, you know that many kanji have two ways of being pronounced: an on'yomi (Chinese) way, and a kun'yomi (Japanese) way. Numbers are no exception to this! You've likely heard words like δΈγ€(hitotsu, one thing) or δΊζ₯ futsuka, two days). These are actually Japanese numbers, "yamato kotoba", the "original" Japanese language before it received Chinese and Western influence. While they've largely fallen out of use in favor of the on'yomi numbers, you can actually count with them! Here and there, you'll also see remnants of this system in modern Japanese: - With some counters (as mentioned above) - δΊεζ³ (hatachi, 20 years old) - δΈεθ·― (misoji, someone in their 30's) - ε «ηΎε± (yaoya, fruit/veggie store)