This topic contains 9 replies, has 4 voices, and was last updated by 
-
Posts
-
Hi,
I’m a newbie to the course and Japanese in general, but I’m diligently working through the lessons and having fun along the way.
That being said, I’m having trouble working out the difference between these two in the practice section of the past tense nouns lesson.
I’m confused that the pronunciation of 一人 is ひとり, but the pronunciation of 七人 is しちにん. I thought that because both are combo-kanji they should both use the on’yomi, but how come 一人 is pronounced in the kun’yomi way and 七人 is pronounced in the on’yomi way.Would really appreciate any help!
Thanks!This is something that Koichi never seems to mention: 一人 (ひとり) and 二人 (ふたり) are weird freaky exceptions – after that, it’s almost invariably on’yomi+にん. Note, however, that 四人 is よにん (because しにん = 死人 = corpse), and that while 七人 is usually しちにん, reading it as ななにん is not completely unheard-of. But 七 is weird like that.
Pretty much every counter word has at least one weird freaky exception somewhere, though for the most part they’re not AS weird.
Hey Joel, 久しぶりね!! Thought I’d check back with Textfugu after all this time to see if much had changed. Nope, nothing has, should have expected that :D I thought at least EtoEto beta would be up and running, but no. The last blog post here is from 2015. You’re still here helping newbies with the *exact* same questions as well! You could probably have written your own textbook in the time it’s taken Koichi and the gang, though it would probably just be 10 chapters explaining 七人 vs 一人 in minute detail ;)
Whoa! You’re alive! =)
You could probably have written your own textbook in the time it’s taken Koichi and the gang, though it would probably just be 10 chapters explaining 七人 vs 一人 in minute detail ;)
It’d probably be about as well-maintined, though…
Thanks Joel, I really appreciate the tip! I get the feeling I’m only going to dislike kanji more the more I learn.
In Koichi’s defence he does mention it briefly on one of Kanji pages, but I might have missed it completely and remained confused if I wasn’t already in the know 👍
@Tim: Kanji are great! You’ll get to a point eventually where things just click in your head. The more kanji you learn and the more you encounter them in your studies, the more your brain will “get used to” them and see them as words as opposed to mysterious symbols :) It’s a bit like how the particle ‘wa’ is written as ‘ha’ but your brain kinda auto-converts it once you’ve seen it enough times.
@Joel: Yup, still kicking around. It’s nice to see you’re still around too, helpful as ever. Apart from Winter/Kaona and Mark Weber who I’ve got on Facebook, I wonder how the other oldies are getting on. After graduating university in 2015, I kinda put my Japanese studies on hold due to lack of motivation. I had so much free time after uni to study Japanese but only now that I’ve found a job and I’m actually busy am I slowly returning to it…
I started TF in late-2010 before going to uni in 2011, completed 4 years, and now almost 2 years after THAT, TF is still not finished :D
@Joel: Yup, still kicking around. It’s nice to see you’re still around too, helpful as ever. Apart from Winter/Kaona and Mark Weber who I’ve got on Facebook, I wonder how the other oldies are getting on.
Tell Winter to come back? There are no active mods here at all… =P
But yeah, every now and then, someone sticks their nose in.
After graduating university in 2015, I kinda put my Japanese studies on hold due to lack of motivation.
Yeah, I get that. I really have NOT been keeping up my study as much as I ought. Even my work of translating a drama series keeps getting smothered by procrastination…
I started TF in late-2010 before going to uni in 2011, completed 4 years, and now almost 2 years after THAT, TF is still not finished :D
The Sagrada Família in Barcelona was commenced in 1882, and is still not finished, a hundred and thirty-five years later. Six years is small change. =P
I was confused by this too… Just starting out and hitting bumps very early on. Hopefully it gets better later.
Thanks Tim for finding the page explaining it a bit more. I am still trying to figure it out, but hopefully it will make sense at some point.
This is something that Koichi never seems to mention: 一人 (ひとり) and 二人 (ふたり) are weird freaky exceptions – after that, it’s almost invariably on’yomi+にん. Note, however, that 四人 is よにん (because しにん = 死人 = corpse), and that while 七人 is usually しちにん, reading it as ななにん is not completely unheard-of. But 七 is weird like that.
Pretty much every counter word has at least one weird freaky exception somewhere, though for the most part they’re not AS weird.
Hi Joel, so is the “one” and “two” exception just for persons, or for counting groups of anything? Let’s say two eggs for example?
Just persons. That said, most counter words have at least slightly odd readings for some of the numbers, and the counter 日 is all over the shop. Also, at some point, you’ll be learning the generic counter word つ, which uses kun’yomi for everything from 1-10 (but no longer gets used at all for numbers larger than 10).
Wikipedia has a pretty good article on the subject: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word#Euphonic_changes
Ironically, you’d probably count eggs with the つ counter (so it’d be ひとつ, ふたつ), though you could also use the 個 counter.
You must be logged in to reply to this topic.