{"id":9015,"date":"2020-10-29T22:16:11","date_gmt":"2020-10-29T22:16:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/?p=9015"},"modified":"2023-03-27T17:47:36","modified_gmt":"2023-03-27T17:47:36","slug":"nouns-plural-japanese","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/nouns-plural-japanese\/","title":{"rendered":"Pluralizing Nouns in Japanese: Everything You Need to Know"},"content":{"rendered":"<style>img#mv-trellis-img-1::before{padding-top:150%; }img#mv-trellis-img-1{display:block;}<\/style><p>One aspect of Japanese that often causes difficulty for translators and students alike is how the language handles plural.<\/p>\n<p>You might have heard that there&rsquo;s no plural at all in Japanese. While that&rsquo;s not strictly true, for the most part it&rsquo;s accurate.<\/p>\n<p>That means that, when translating into English or even understanding something in Japanese, you need to use context to make sure if something is singular or plural.<\/p>\n<p>Let&rsquo;s take a more thorough look at how pluralization works in Japanese.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<br>\n[toc]\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>How do you make nouns plural in Japanese?<\/h2>\n<p><strong>The plural form of a noun in Japanese is identical to its singular form. For example, the word &#40575; (shika, &ldquo;deer&rdquo;) could refer to one or several deer, just like the English word &ldquo;deer.&rdquo; There are several strategies you can use to make it clear when something is plural, including the use of counter words, the use of quantity words like &#20840;&#12390; (subete, &ldquo;all&rdquo;) or &#25968; (suu, &ldquo;several&rdquo;) and the use of &#12383;&#12385; (tachi, the pluralization marker) for people. By itself, though, there&rsquo;s no way to tell if a particular noun is singular or plural.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Japanese nouns: singular and plural<\/h2>\n<p>Grammatically speaking, Japanese nouns have no grammatical number.<\/p>\n<p>In plain English, what that means is that the singular form and the plural form are the same for all nouns.<\/p>\n<p>If you see &#12360;&#12435;&#12404;&#12388; (enpitsu, &ldquo;pencil&rdquo;), that could mean a single pencil or it could mean multiple pencils.<\/p>\n<p>On the one hand, this is great. You don&rsquo;t need to <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/how-many-kanji-to-be-fluent\/\">memorize<\/a><\/strong> multiple versions of the same word, or esoteric patterns to pluralize a word.<\/p>\n<p>If you want to make a noun plural, you&hellip; just use the noun, the same way you would if it were singular. Woohoo!<\/p>\n<p>On the other hand, though, Japan&rsquo;s lack of a grammatical number can be confusing.<\/p>\n<p>Let&rsquo;s take a short digression and do a deeper dive to see why this makes translation, or just understanding, complicated.<\/p>\n<p>After that, we&rsquo;ll look at some solutions for explicitly pluralizing Japanese words.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>The case of the jumping frog(s)<\/h3>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p><strong>&#21476;&#27744;&#12420;<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong> &#34521;&#39131;&#12403;&#12371;&#12416; <\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>&#27700;&#12398;&#38899;<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>This example is a famous haiku (a type of short poem), written by Matsuo Bash&#333; in the late 1600s.<\/p>\n<p>That might seem a bit strange, but<strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/bare-in-mind-vs-bear-in-mind\/\">bear<\/a><\/strong> with me a minute!<\/p>\n<p>The typical translation of the haiku into English goes something like this:<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p>old pond&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>a frog jumps in<\/p>\n<p>the sound of water<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>However, there&rsquo;s actually nothing in this haiku which makes &#34521; (kawazu, &ldquo;frog&rdquo;) explicitly single. As mentioned, nouns in Japanese can be either singular <em>or<\/em> plural, depending on their context.<\/p>\n<p>In this case, there isn&rsquo;t a lot of context in the poem itself, but <a href=\"https:\/\/poetrysociety.org.nz\/affiliates\/haiku-nz\/haiku-poems-articles\/archived-articles\/a-contrarian-view-on-bashos-frog-haiku\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>this essay<\/strong><\/a> from the New Zealand Poetry Society argues that there are good reasons for a translation where &ldquo;frog&rdquo; is plural:<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">\n<p>The old pond&hellip;<\/p>\n<p>frogs jumping in<\/p>\n<p>the sound of water<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<p>You might think this is just a problem of translation, but it&rsquo;s not. Even in Japanese, it&rsquo;s an open question whether there are multiple frogs in this haiku, or just one frog.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ndsu.ac.jp\/blog\/article\/index.php?c=blog_view&amp;pk=15695551900007&amp;category=&amp;category2=\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>This essay<\/strong><\/a> from professor Tojo Toshiki at Notre Dame Seishin University discusses several possibilities before ending with the admission that it&rsquo;s impossible to tell.<\/p>\n<p>It might seem like the number of frogs in a 400-year-old haiku is meaningless today, but the lack of pluralization in Japanese can cause misunderstandings in the modern world as well.<\/p>\n<p>For example, what if your new boss asks you to fetch&#12300;&#12354;&#12398;&#26032;&#20837;&#12301;(ano shinnyuu, &ldquo;that newcomer&rdquo;)?<\/p>\n<p>Are they asking you to get a single person, or are they asking you to go gather all the new hires?<\/p>\n<p>Let&rsquo;s look at a few options for adding clarity when it&rsquo;s important.<\/p>\n<p><noscript><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9031\" src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin.jpg\" alt=\"Pluralizing Nouns in Japanese: Everything you Need to Know\" width=\"924\" height=\"1386\" srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin.jpg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-561x842.jpg 561w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-364x546.jpg 364w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-728x1092.jpg 728w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-608x912.jpg 608w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-758x1137.jpg 758w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin.jpg\"><\/noscript><img loading=\"eager\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-9031 eager-load\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%20924%201386'%3E%3Crect%20width='924'%20height='1386'%20style='fill:%23e3e3e3'\/%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" alt=\"Pluralizing Nouns in Japanese: Everything you Need to Know\" width=\"924\" height=\"1386\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 924px) 100vw, 924px\" data-pin-media=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin.jpg\" id=\"mv-trellis-img-1\" data-src=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin.jpg\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin.jpg 320w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-200x300.jpg 200w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-683x1024.jpg 683w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-768x1152.jpg 768w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-561x842.jpg 561w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-364x546.jpg 364w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-728x1092.jpg 728w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-608x912.jpg 608w, https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Pluralizing-Nouns-in-Japanese-Pin-758x1137.jpg 758w\" data-svg=\"1\" data-trellis-processed=\"1\"><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Meet &#12383;&#12385; (tachi) and &#12425; (ra), the &ldquo;group&rdquo; suffixes<\/h2>\n<p>The <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/chan-vs-kun-a-subtle-distinction\/\">suffixes<\/a><\/strong> &#12383;&#12385; (tachi) and &#12425; (ra) can be added to the end of a person or pronoun to refer to multiple people.<\/p>\n<p>The main difference between the two is that &#12383;&#12385; sounds slightly more polite, and &#12425; slightly more casual.<\/p>\n<p>These suffixes don&rsquo;t technically make things plural, but are what grammarians call &ldquo;collectivizing suffixes.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>In other words, saying &#12472;&#12519;&#12531;&#12383;&#12385; doesn&rsquo;t mean &ldquo;the Johns,&rdquo; but rather &ldquo;John and the other people with John.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/chan-vs-kun-a-subtle-distinction\/\">these suffixes<\/a><\/strong> can only be used with people. In some cases, you can also use it for animals, but it sounds very cutesy and isn&rsquo;t appropriate unless you are talking to a very small child or want to sound like you are yourself a small child. (We won&rsquo;t judge you.)<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s important to make sure you don&rsquo;t use these suffixes for inanimate objects, in any case.<\/p>\n<p>If you walk around talking about your &#12360;&#12435;&#12404;&#12388;&#12383;&#12385; (enpitsu, &ldquo;pencil&rdquo; + tachi) or ask about the &#36554;&#12425; (kuruma, &ldquo;car&rdquo; + ra), people are going to think you either failed your Japanese class or are <em>mighty<\/em> strange.<\/p>\n<h3>Examples<\/h3>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><strong>&#12300;&#12354;&#12398;&#23376;&#12383;&#12385;&#12399;&#12358;&#12427;&#12373;&#12356;&#12391;&#12377;&#12397;&#65281;&#12301;<\/strong> &ldquo;Those kids sure are loud!&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><strong>&#12300;&#20474;&#12425;&#12398;&#30446;&#30340;&#12399;&#24517;&#21213;&#12384;&#12380;&#65281;&#12301;<\/strong> &ldquo;Our objective is certain victory!&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n<p>Both of these examples use &#12383;&#12385; and &#12425; as a suffix to &ldquo;collectivize&rdquo; the noun for &ldquo;that kid&rdquo; (&#12354;&#12398;&#23376;) and I (&#12362;&#12428;), respectively.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">&#12300;&#26032;&#20837;&#12383;&#12385;&#12434;&#32862;&#12363;&#12379;&#12390;&#12290;&#12301; &ldquo;Go and tell the new hires.&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n<p>This is similar to our hypothetical example from the first section of the article. Here, it&rsquo;s clear that your <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/business-japanese-vocabulary\/\">boss<\/a><\/strong> is asking you to tell <em>all<\/em> the new hires about something.<\/p>\n<p>Of course, if that was already clear from context, for instance if you were talking about possible changes to scheduling that would have far-reaching consequences, this could imply a plural <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-even\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">even<\/a><\/strong> without &#12383;&#12385;.<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><strong>&#12300;&#26032;&#20837;&#12434;&#32862;&#12363;&#12379;&#12390;&#12290;&#12301;<\/strong> &ldquo;Go and tell the new hires.&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n<p>This could, however, also mean &ldquo;the new hire,&rdquo; so if you absolutely need to imply a group of people &#12383;&#12385; and &#12425; are very useful suffixes.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Counter words: a solution with its own problem<\/h2>\n<p>Because &#12383;&#12385; and &#12425; can only be used with people, other strategies are needed when dealing with animals or inanimate objects.<\/p>\n<p>One option for pluralizing nouns is to use counter words. These words can be combined with numbers to refer to a specific amount of nouns of the same type.<\/p>\n<p>This is similar to English, where you could say &ldquo;There are four deer&rdquo; and be a lot more specific than &ldquo;There are deer.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>To do this in Japanese, you use the following structure:<\/p>\n<p><strong>[noun] &#12399; [number] [counter] &#12364; [be verb]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>You can also use counters with other verbs if the thing being counted is a direct object:<\/p>\n<p><strong>[noun] &#12434; [number] [counter] [verb]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>So,&#12300;&#40575;&#12399;&#22235;&#21305;&#12356;&#12414;&#12377;&#12290;&#12301;would be &ldquo;there are four deer.&rdquo; (Remember that you need to use &#12356;&#12414;&#12377; (imasu) for living things and &#12354;&#12426;&#12414;&#12377; (arimasu) for inanimate objects.)<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, counter words come with their own wrinkle: there are <em>a lot<\/em> of them, and the word you need to use varies depending on the noun you&rsquo;re describing.<\/p>\n<p>In some cases, the set of nouns that can be described with a counter word makes sense.<\/p>\n<p>For instance, &#21305; (hiki) is used for &lsquo;small&rsquo; animals like dogs, cats or deer.<\/p>\n<p>Others seem strange to non-native speakers, such as &#20491; (ko) for small, round objects.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-or-after-yet\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Yet<\/a><\/strong> others, such as &#19969; (chou), come with seemingly impossible lists to memorize. &#19969;, for instance, is used for &ldquo;Sheets, pages, leaves, tools, scissors, saws, trousers, pistols, cakes of tofu, town blocks and servings at a restaurant,&rdquo; according to Wikipedia.<\/p>\n<p>It would take a long time to go into exhaustive detail on all the possible counter words in Japanese, but fortunately you don&rsquo;t need to know many (if you want to really go wild, check out this <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.shurey.com\/countdic\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">counting dictionary<\/a><\/strong>.)<\/p>\n<p>Let&rsquo;s take a short while and look at the most common counters.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>&#12388; (tsu) as &ldquo;things&rdquo;<\/h3>\n<p>&#12388; (tsu) is kind of a catch-all counter, and is also used in the traditional Japanese counting system.<\/p>\n<p>As a counter word, it basically means &ldquo;things.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>That said, if another counter word like &#26412; or &#21305; is more appropriate, you should use that instead.<\/p>\n<h4>Examples<\/h4>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><strong>&#12300;&#12354;&#12428;&#12434;&#19977;&#12388;&#12367;&#12384;&#12373;&#12356;&#12290;&#12301;<\/strong> &ldquo;Three of those, please.&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Counters for animals<\/h3>\n<p>&#21305; (hiki)&#12288;is the counter used for many kinds of small to medium-sized animals, as well as most types of fish, insects and reptiles.<\/p>\n<p>Birds and rabbits get another counter, &#32701;&#12288;(wa), while large animals use the counter &#38957; (tou). Weirdly, dolphins and butterflies are also counted with &#38957;.<\/p>\n<h4>Examples<\/h4>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">&#12300;&#24237;&#12395;&#12399;&#40335;&#12364;&#20108;&#32701;&#12354;&#12426;&#12414;&#12377;&#12290;&#12301; &ldquo;There are two chickens in the garden.&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n<p>This Japanese sentence is also a classic tongue-twister. It&rsquo;s pronounced &ldquo;niwa ni wa niwatori ga niwa arimasu.&rdquo; (Check out the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/japanese.stackexchange.com\/questions\/29321\/repeated-word-puzzle-%E5%BA%AD%E3%81%AB%E3%81%AF%E4%BA%8C%E7%BE%BD%E9%B6%8F%E3%81%8C%E3%81%84%E3%82%8B\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">harder version<\/a><\/strong>.)<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>&#20154; (ri, nin), the counter for people<\/h3>\n<p>This counter is one that is learned pretty early in many Japanese classes as the words &#19968;&#20154; (hitori, &ldquo;one person&rdquo; or &ldquo;alone&rdquo;) and &#20108;&#20154; (futari, &ldquo;two people&rdquo; or &ldquo;together).<\/p>\n<p>It can also be used with larger numbers of people, and sometimes is read as &ldquo;nin&rdquo; instead of &ldquo;ri.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<h4>Examples<\/h4>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">&#12300;<strong>&#12473;&#12479;&#12472;&#12450;&#12512;&#12395;&#19975;&#20154;&#12364;&#12356;&#12414;&#12375;&#12383;&#12290;&#12301;<\/strong> &ldquo;There were 10,000 people in the stadium.&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>&#26412; (hon, pon, bon), the counter for things that are long and thin<\/h3>\n<p>&#26412; is used to count anything that&rsquo;s long and thin <a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-and\/\">and<\/a> for a few other odds and ends.<\/p>\n<p>Pencils, bottles and rivers all use this counter, as do telephone calls, individual chopsticks and train routes.<\/p>\n<h4>Examples<\/h4>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">&#12300;&#12354;&#12398;&#12360;&#12435;&#12404;&#12388;&#12434;&#19977;&#26412;&#25345;&#12387;&#12390;&#12365;&#12390;&#12367;&#12384;&#12373;&#12356;&#12290;&#12301; &ldquo;Please get me three of those pencils.&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>&#20491; (ko) for small round objects<\/h3>\n<p>If you&rsquo;re counting grains of sand on a beach, you might need a new hobby.<\/p>\n<p>You also might need the counter &#20491; (ko), which is used to count anything small and round. It&rsquo;s used for military divisions like brigades or armies <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/comma-before-too-the-definitive-guide\/\">too<\/a><\/strong>, oddly enough.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h3>Other common counters<\/h3>\n<p>&#26522; (mai) is used for sheets of paper and other thin, flat things, while the counters &#24230; (do) and&#12288;&#22238; (kai)&#12288;can both be used to count occurrences of something.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>Quantifying your nouns with other words<\/h2>\n<p>Another problem with counters is that they only work if you&rsquo;re dealing with specific numbers.<\/p>\n<p>What if you really just want to say there is some number of deer outside, for instance?<\/p>\n<p>If you want to pluralize something without numbers, you can use a quantity word like &ldquo;several&rdquo; or &ldquo;all&rdquo; in place of the number and counter word from our previous sentence structures.<\/p>\n<p><strong>[noun] &#12399; [quantity word] &#12364; [be verb]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>[noun] &#12434; [quantity word] [verb]<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Note that, in some cases, you actually will still need a counter word with a quantity word.<\/p>\n<p>&#25968; (suu, &ldquo;several&rdquo;), for example, requires a counter after it just like a number.<\/p>\n<p>You can also use &#20309; (nani, &ldquo;what&rdquo;) with a counter to ask how many of something there are.<\/p>\n<p>Other words, such as &#30342; (minna, &ldquo;all&rdquo;) or &#20840;&#37096; (zenbu, &ldquo;all&rdquo;) don&rsquo;t require counters, although some quantity words such as &#35079;&#25968; (fukusuu, &ldquo;several&rdquo;) do use a different type of sentence structure.<\/p>\n<p>There isn&rsquo;t really a shortcut to learning which is which, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/dont-give-up-in-japanese\/\">unfortunately<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Just keep an ear out as you listen to Japanese conversations and you&rsquo;ll gradually build up your confidence and awareness of which structure is the most appropriate one.<\/p>\n<h3>Examples<\/h3>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><strong>&#12300;&#40575;&#12399;&#30342;&#28040;&#12360;&#12385;&#12419;&#12387;&#12383;&#65281;&#12301;<\/strong> &ldquo;All the deer vanished!&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n<p>This sentence is very explicitly referring to more than one deer, thanks to &#30342; (minna, &ldquo;all&rdquo;).<\/p>\n<div class=\"su-note\" style=\"border-color:#e5e54c;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\"><div class=\"su-note-inner su-u-clearfix su-u-trim\" style=\"background-color:#FFFF66;border-color:#ffffff;color:#333333;border-radius:3px;-moz-border-radius:3px;-webkit-border-radius:3px;\">&#12300;&#35079;&#25968;&#12398;&#40575;&#12434;&#35211;&#12360;&#12414;&#12375;&#12383;&#12290;&#12301; &ldquo;I saw several deer.&rdquo;<\/div><\/div>\n<p>As noted, &#35079;&#25968; uses a different sentence structure, and precedes the noun it quantifies, rather than following it.<br>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2>When in doubt, leave it out<\/h2>\n<p>Learning all these complicated rules for making nouns plural can be a challenge.<\/p>\n<p><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/you-can-do-it-in-japanese\/\">You can do it<\/a><\/strong> if you put your mind to it, but sometimes you just want to take the easy option.<\/p>\n<p>In that case, always remember how this article started: there is literally no difference between singular and plural nouns in Japanese.<\/p>\n<p>That means it&rsquo;s perfectly acceptable (and considerably easier) to simply use a noun to refer to a nonspecific number of something, as well as to mean a single one of it.<\/p>\n<p>Unless you really need the specificity of a specific number plus a counter, it might be best to stick to the noun by itself that when you need a plural noun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One aspect of Japanese that often causes difficulty for translators and students alike is how the language handles plural. You might have heard that there&rsquo;s no plural at all in Japanese. While that&rsquo;s not strictly true, for the most part it&rsquo;s accurate. That means that, when translating into English or even understanding something in Japanese, &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9030,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"disable-in-feed":false,"article-schema-type":"","disable-critical-css":false,"_convertkit_action_broadcast_export":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,1154],"tags":[148,149],"class_list":["post-9015","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-japanese","category-japanese-grammar","tag-plural-in-japanese","tag-plural-nouns-japanese"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9015","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9015"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9015\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9035,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9015\/revisions\/9035"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/9030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaholic.com\/linguablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}