Japanese Language Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for students, teachers, and linguists wanting to discuss the finer points of the Japanese language. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I'm a bit confused. The first sentence I learned was biru kudasai (ビールください).
But then I watched this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ox-YMeYZSvs
And I found out there are so many variations. So I wonder what's the difference? And which one is the most colloquial one?
They all mean the same thing ("One beer, please") but the difference is the counters.
ひとつ is a general counter for things and is safe for most nouns if you don't know the specific counter.
いっぽん is a counter for long things like pencils. In the case with a beer, it means "one bottle" (it says it in the video description).
いっぱい is the counter for beverages. This is the most specific and probably the most appropriate for the situation of ordering a "drink", whatever a "drink" is considered.
