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So I was going through the practice sentences for chapter 2 (found here) by seeing if I could pronounce the sentence, understand it and then listen to the audio to see if it matched my pronunciation.
(when I play the audio for these two)
一人 [一 (one) + 人 (person) = ひとり (kun’yomi reading)] でした
二人 [二 (two) + 人 (person) = ふたり (kun’yomi reading)] でしたか？
(it is correct)(but when I play this one)
七人 [七 (seven) + 人 (person) = ななり (kun’yomi reading)] じゃありません
(it doesn’t match the audio even though it should follow the same pattern)
(am I missing something, does it have something to do with the inflection [tense] that proceeds it, or am I mishearing it?)七人 = しちにん
The pattern for number+人 is actually on’yomi + にん – 一人 and 二人 are the freaky exceptions that break that pattern, though Koichi never seems to mention it clearly.
That said, because 七 is a weird one in that its readings tend to be fairly interchangeable, ななにん is not unheard-of. 四 is the same, to a lesser extent (四人 = よにん, probably because しにん = 死人 = corpse).
一人 = ひとり
二人 = ふたり
三人 = さんにん
四人 = よにん
五人 = ごにん
六人 = ろくにん
七人 = しちにん
八人 = はちにん
九人 = きゅうにん
十人 = じゅうにん
十一人 = じゅういちにん
et ceterathanks, makes sense now
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