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Your book is correct. When talking about human body temperature, 三十 is often omitted, probably because it is obvious. While there is nothing wrong with saying 37度8分 (37.8 degrees Celsius), it is often abbreviated to 7度8分. Even 37度 (37 degrees Celsius) without a fractional part sometimes becomes 7度. You cannot abbreviate the temperature when it is 40 ...

We normally say [三十分]{さんじゅっぷん}. Some people say [半時間]{はんじかん}, but I think it's only used in Kansai area. 参考に・・→　OKWave「半時間って方言ですか」 P.S. I'm from Kyoto but actually I've never noticed any of my friends say 半時間... Most of them are in/from Kyoto, Osaka, or Shiga. I think it's more used by older people (probably in Osaka?), because the only two people I can ...

In a restaurant it is usually enough to simply ask for お箸を下さい. It is perfectly understood that that means "enough chopsticks for me [and my companions], please". Anything more specific is usually unnatural. If you do need to specify how many pairs of chopsticks exactly, you'd usually use 〜膳 -zen.

From experience, I find Japanese people having lots of trouble converting between Japanese and Gregorian calendar years. I regularly surprise people with my ability to do that as follows (Japanese calendar years are often represented with an alphabet character like S or H.): Showa Era (1925 to 1989) Subtract 1900 (e.g. 1976 - 1900 = 76) Subtract 25 (e.g. ...

This is pretty common in restaurants etc, both by staff and by customers. I think it's just to make counting easier. For example, ビール is counted with 杯{はい} when seved in a glass, but 本{ほん} when served in a bottle. If rice is served in a chawan, it would be 杯{はい}, but when served on a plate, it would be 皿{さら}. So ～つ is just being used as a generic "X ...

For counting a number of occurrences 回 and 度 are interchangeable with small numbers. Somewhere around 4 (the line is quite vague), 度 becomes uncommon, and by the time you get to 6, 回 is pretty much the only one used. (Naturally, 度 can be used with any number for counting degrees, as noted in Azeworai's informative answer.)

Yes, [一分間]{いっぷんかん}, [一ヶ月間]{いっかげつかん} and [一年間]{いちねんかん} exist, but the [間]{かん} in them is not the same as in [一時間]{いちじかん} and [一週間]{いっしゅうかん}. The 間 in 一時間 and 一週間 is a part of the counter words for "hour" and "week", but the counter words for "minute", "month" and "year" are 分, ヶ月 and 年 (not 分間, ヵ月間, 年間), and the 間 in 一分間, 一ヶ月間 and 一年間 is more like "for~~" or ...

I think you are making a big miskate. As for ５X4間, you interpret it as 'five rooms by four', but it is not clear what that means, and probably that is wrong. 間 is a traditional unit for length. It is approx the long length of a tatami (about 1.8m). ５X4間 means a ５間 by 4間 rectangle.

I don't personally know the answer, but exploring my way through EDICT: a) In the definition, sense 3 - counter for horses - is listed only as "き only" (so not ひき); it is also marked as an archaic term. b) Skimming the examples page for 馬, I could only find one example using a counter: そのレースで争った馬は４頭だけだった。 Only four horses competed in the race. ...

The article at Wikipedia covers the common ones as well as a decent number of extended ones, and lists the exceptions for days, people, etc. as well as rendaku and number word changes (e.g. 300->san*bya*ku, 4:00-> *yo*ji).

If you get a number of items from a convenience store in Japan the clerk will ask you how many chopsticks you want, and even these staff (not always the most educated of Japanese) will properly ask "ohashi nanzen" お箸何膳, i.e. how many (pairs of) chopsticks do you want? This is proper and natural and not bookish. I have never heard anyone use "hon" 本 as a ...

I'm going to extrapolate the rules for Japanese counters onto foreign-counter-words. Extracted from Nihongoresources: Rules for 一 When followed by a counter starting with a syllable from the か—, さ— or た—column, いち becomes いっ When followed by a counter starting with a は—column syllable, いち becomes いっ and the counter changes to a 'p' sound Rules for ...

Following this advice on Meta, I'm going to throw in an answer I'm pretty sure of, but could be corrected on. Scanning down the list of example counters in the Wikipedia article you linked to, every one of them starts with 一{いち}, or it's phonetically adjusted equivalents like 一{いっ}. There were a lot, though, so maybe I missed one or two exceptions. Thus, ...

第一番, 第一, 一番: noun 'number one'. 一 still retains its meaning as a number, so it can be replaced by the number character: 第1番, 第1, 1番. 交響曲第一番/第一/一番/第1番/第1/1番 'symphony no. 1' 第一, 第1 can be used as a prefix. 第一/第1交響曲 'symphony no. 1' 第一: noun 'has priority'. 一 does not retain the meaning 'one', and cannot be replaced by '1'. 安全が第一 'safety ...

There are entire dictionaries for this (数え方の辞典). Here's a link to a whole bunch. 個 (ko) is the most commonly used one. Japanese people use it on almost everything, including stuff that has its own counter, partly because it's sometimes annoying for even them to think of the proper 数詞. + 台 (dai) for machines like cars and computers + 足 (soku) for pairs of ...

This isn't a dumb question at all! For the most part, you do have to modify the number, you can't just say it by itself. You can't ask for just two bottles of beer, you have to add the counter (ほん) or use ふたつ. One scenario where you can just use the numbers is if you're just counting for the sake of counting. Like, for example, you're counting jumping jacks ...

頭【とう】 is a counter for what are usually herd animals. Cows, elk, horses, elephants... The four legged thing might also be a factor. You don't necessarily have to see them on a ranch for foodstock purposes, but it's that kind of animal. ひき is the counter for pretty much every other kind of animal that isn't covered by a more specific counter like 頭, or 羽【わ】 ...

I think 皆{みんな} can mean "all" when used adverbially, as well as "everyone" or "everything": でも世界の子供はみんな私を知っています。 "But the children of the world all know me." You can also use みんな to refer to more than people: チーズは皆食べられてしまった "All of the cheese has been eaten." There's some more examples at the Yahoo dictionary definition for 皆{みな} (for ...

Any movie will still use ひとり、ふたり, etc. Why? Because anything with human-like traits (including humans) will use ひとり、ふたり、etc. However, there is an exception, for example in a movie where humans are the "prey", 匹 will be used, because in those situations you are starting to treat humans like other animals (二匹捕まえたぞ!)

I believe the question you're trying to ask is "why are there counter words in Japanese?" (or perhaps "why do I have to learn all these counter words?"). It does seem kind of strange coming from English, where you can just say a number, to where you have to start using a number plus different words depending on the size/shape/other characteristic of an ...

In your example, context wise is the same they're both correct because they're counting an occurrence- both words can be used for counting occurrences. 度 can be used for counting degrees in angles and temperature whereas 回 cannot. 回 is more often used for rounds and revolutions whereas 度 is not used. To be explicit, my dictionary(midori) categorises ...

A good resource for this type of question is 『数え方の辞典』. It includes the following: 映画の作品数・上映数は「本」で数えます。細長い映画のフィルムが、巻かれた状態でひとつの作品として扱われることに由来します。 There is further information on various cases when it may be counted as 作, 作品, 巻き, 巻 (kan), 齣 (koma), カット, シーン, 場面 etc. For more details, I recommend consulting this at a library or getting your own copy.

Here's an article. And another article. Also, once you know the counter no matter the number you can use them as usual. I will buy 2 books = hon o ni satsu kaimasu There are 3 people here = koko ni hito ga san nin imasu There are 20 people = hito ga ni juu nin imasu There are 21 people here = koko ni hito ga ni juu ichi nin imasu I drank 4 cups of coffee ...

There are special words for counting a small number of people, days, and so on, but let’s begin with the regular pattern. Usually, the word which describes a number is just the combination of a numeral and a counter word. The numeral does not change depending on the counter word, and the counter word does not change depending on the number. This is what ...

Regarding 匹, the original sense was that which comes in pairs. As a counter, it referred to animals with asses which have a left and right half. Primary examples were horses and cows. Gradually it became used for other animals such as reptiles, fish and insects. Eventually, a desire to count large animals emerged and this was accomplished with 頭. Now 匹 ...

You already know what these signs mean, but let me try to answer your specific question: Are these wasei-eigo? A short answer is “probably no.” Recall that a wasei-eigo is a word which looks like a loanword from English but in fact is made in Japan. Although the signs B2F, B1F, 1F, 2F, and so on are specific to Japan (and possibly some other ...

This may be an answer to Derek's comment rather than to Andrew's original question. They are commonly written on walls right in front of an elevator, stairs, or an escalator, or on elevator buttons. They stand for Basement 2nd Floor, Basement 1st Floor, 1st Floor, 2nd Floor, as Andrew wrote. In Japanese, when words are abbreviated, they are usually ...

We actually asked my teachers this question (all native speakers, PhD'd professional language teachers) , and they had to confer. They concluded that if you were counting days in the year (like some business calenders do), day 364 would have been さんびゃくろくじゅうよっか. Note that this example is still basically "a date" ('calender-speak', as you said), so I'm not ...

If it just means “One semester is a few months long,” it can be 学期の長さは数か月だ. “A few months” in English is probably two or three months, but 数か月 in Japanese can be somewhat longer. See question “Why use 数年 in あれから１０数年?” for more about this usage of 数. A related expression, 月単位の時間, has a similar meaning, but it refers to the abstract notion of time directly. ...

There is also 何ヶ月, as in 学期の長さは何ヶ月という長さだ。 which I think fits even better for your purpose. 数ヶ月 is more a specific length in time, although you choose not to specify the length. 何ヶ月 means that you are counting in months, but have no real estimate of how many months. 何 works for "counting in" with other counters, e.g. 何時間も待ってた。 I waited for hours. ...