Learn how to use the counter 羽 (wa)
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| Do you know how to count big animals? |
| I'll tell you the answer at the end of this lesson! |
| Hi everybody! I'm Alisha. |
| こんにちは、 Yamamori です。 |
| Welcome to Japanese Counters for Beginners, where you'll learn how to count all sorts of different objects in Japanese! |
| Yamamori-sensei, what counter will we learn in this lesson? |
| 羽 |
| First, let's take a look at what sorts of objects can be counted with the counter. |
| When you count birds, you can use the counter… |
| 羽 |
| This counter is basically for birds. The bird you are counting can be as big as an ostrich or as small as a baby chick, and it can even be used for a penguin. |
| Okay, let's count numbers 1 to 10 with this counter. |
| 一羽 |
| 二羽 |
| 三羽 |
| 四羽 |
| 五羽 |
| 六羽 |
| 七羽 |
| 八羽 |
| 九羽 |
| 十羽 |
| Did you notice that there were some numbers that sounded different to how they usually sound? |
| This counter can allow more flexibility compared to other counters. There are different versions for the numbers 3, 6, 8 and 10. |
| For number 3, you can also say 'san-ba'. |
| For number 6, you can also say 'ro-ppa'. |
| For number 8, you can also say 'ha-ppa'. |
| For number 10, it's 'ju-ppa'. |
| Okay. Now let's take a look at some sample sentences that use this counter. |
| 庭にすずめが二羽います。 |
| “There are 2 sparrows in the garden.” |
| 学校で、にわとりを五羽、飼っています。 |
| “We're raising 5 chickens at school.” |
| 動物園で、ペンギンを七羽見ました。 |
| “I saw 7 penguins at the zoo.” |
| Now it's time for a quiz. I'm going to ask you a question in English. Answer it in Japanese. Are you ready? Make sure you use the right counter. |
| How many birds are there? |
| 鳥が六羽います。 |
| How many chickens did you draw? |
| ニワトリを四羽描きました。 |
| We've learned the counters for small to medium size animals, but do you know how to count |
| big animals? The answer is… |
| 一頭 |
| The kanji for this counter means "head". You can use this counter for large animals that are considered threatening to humans, such as horses, whales and so on. |
| You might hear on the news… くまが一頭、現れました。 |
| And that means, "one bear appeared." Let's hope you won't hear this news though! |
| Okay, everyone. That's it for this lesson. |
| I'll see you next time! |
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