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 一つ(hitotsu, one thing) or 二日 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) - 二十歳 (hatachi, 20 years old) - 三十路 (misoji, someone in their 30's) - 八百屋 (yaoya, fruit/veggie store)