Japanese counters

Japanese doesn't count things bare: a number attaches to a counter (助数詞, josūshi) matched to what's being counted — long thin things take 本, flat things take 枚, small animals take 匹, so "two bottles of beer" is ビール二本. Hundreds of counters exist, but everyday Japanese runs on the fifteen or twenty below — and when you can't remember the right one, the general counter つ (ひとつ, ふたつ, みっつ…) covers almost anything from one to ten.

The catch is sound change: numbers and counters fuse. 本 reads hon alone, but counting gives 一本 ippon, 二本 nihon, 三本 sanbon; 杯 produces 一杯 ippai; 匹 gives 一匹 ippiki. People are irregular outright — 一人 hitori, 二人 futari, then regular 三人 sannin — and age has はたち for twenty. These patterns repeat across counters, so mastering the first few makes the rest predictable.

Start with the core fifteen below — each card notes what it counts and its trickiest reading — then browse the full list: every counter in the dictionary, sortable by frequency so the long tail stays out of your way until you want it.