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I'd like to know the word for "question" itself. For example if I wanted to say:

I have a question

わたしは (question) があります。

I've had a hard time finding an answer to this question because when I search, Google turns up results for question words instead, and I'd rather ask a fluent speaker than a dictionary.

I'd also like to know what counter should be used for counting questions, and if it is regular (so if, when pronouncing the number before the counter it just follows the regular sequence of いち, に, さん, し etc. or if there are any exceptions.)

Apologies for asking three questions, I can move them onto separate threads if need be, but they're all related which is why I didn't.

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1 Answer 1

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しつもん(質問) means question, so the sentence would be わたしは しつもんが あります。 Interestingly the counter for question is もん(問) which is the last syllable of しつもん source

I don't know how to say you have three questions, as you can probably tell I'm not a native speaker, but I think you can say I have some questions, using いくつか(幾つか) which means some, a few or several source. So the sentence would be like this わたしは幾つかの質問があります or わたしは質問がいくつかあります。

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  • That should be わたしは質問がいくつかあります or わたしはいくつかの質問があります. Similarly, you could replace いくつか with however many you have (一つ, 二つ, etc.).
    – istrasci
    Commented Jan 16, 2014 at 20:26
  • Thanks @istrasci I edited the answer, could you explain why you need the の particle?
    – Olumide
    Commented Jan 16, 2014 at 20:33
  • @Olumide, why did you edit "幾つか質問があります" to "幾つか質問があります"? いくつか/一つ質問があります (without の) sounds more natural than いくつかの*/一つの*質問があります.
    – user1016
    Commented Jan 16, 2014 at 22:40
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    @Tim I made the same mistake (though I deleted my comment to cover it up! :-) My guess is that it's because counter words, although they're considered nouns, can also function like adverbs, and adverbs don't need particles. So it would be the same reason that you don't need a particle when you write 質問が一つあります.
    – user1478
    Commented Jan 17, 2014 at 1:27
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    Yes, 質問 = しつもん (Olumide put it in their answer). もん may be the actual counter, but sounds too formal in conversation (to me). You'd use that to say like "This test has 20 questions" or something.
    – istrasci
    Commented Jan 17, 2014 at 20:32

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