Learn how to use the counter 人 (Nin)
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| Do you know how to count people politely? |
| You'll find out 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? |
| 人 |
| First, let's take a look at what sorts of objects can be counted with the counter. |
| When counting people, you can use the counter… |
| 人 |
| This counter is limited strictly to people. You can use this counter for anyone: men, women, children, and the elderly. |
| Okay, let's count from 1 to 10 with this counter. |
| 一人 |
| 二人 |
| 三人 |
| 四人 |
| 五人 |
| 六人 |
| 七人 |
| 八人 |
| 九人 |
| 十人 |
| Did you notice that there were some numbers that sounded different from the usual numbers? |
| Counting 1 and 2 persons takes a special form. And when you read the number 4, you should be careful. |
| For number 1, it's 'hitori' |
| For number 2, it's 'futari' |
| For number 4, it's 'yo-nin', not 'yon-nin.' |
| Okay. Now let's take a look at some sample sentences that use this counter. |
| 私の家族は、四人です。 |
| “My family has 4 family members.” |
| お客さんが十人います。 |
| “There are 10 customers.” |
| パーティーに八人来ました。 |
| “8 people came to the party.” |
| Now it's time for a quiz. I'm going to ask you a question in English. Please answer in Japanese. Are you ready? Be sure to use the right counter. |
| How many students are there? |
| 生徒が七人います。 |
| How many children do they have? |
| 子供が二人います。 |
| The Japanese language always involves politeness and respect. For counting people, there's |
| a politer way. Do you know how to say the number of people in a politer way? |
| The answer is... |
| 一名 |
| You will often hear this counter at hotels, restaurants and cafes to confirm the number of people |
| in your group. |
| For example, 三名様ですか。 |
| And it means "are you a group of three?" You will hear this sentence to confirm you visited the place as a group of three persons. |
| And they will always add the most polite suffix ‘-sama' after the number and the counter. |
| Okay, everyone. That's it for this lesson. |
| I'll see you next time! |
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