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にち for 日: We just learned about durations of time and how often one does something in an amount of time, etc. That means we’ve gone over some of the counter words. The textbook put にち for 日, and then goes on to say that “The number/quantity of days is the same as giving dates (i.e. ついたち,ふつか, etc.)” which is confusing me. When do I use にち then? The example sentences don’t use days much, and when they do, they’re like:
ようか かかります。
…and that’s like the only one I’ve found with days in this textbook.I think I can sum this up in two questions:
1) in the sentence above, if I wanted to say it will take one day, would I use ついたち かかります?
2) would I use いちにち to do 一日に何回, 一日に３回, etc.?-
This topic was modified 13 years, 1 month ago by
Jonniez.
> ついたち
That is used for “the first day of the month.”
http://assets0.smart.fm/assets/legacy/JLL/audio/JS05789A.mp3
> いちにち
That is used for a 1-day duration.
http://assets2.smart.fm/assets/legacy/JLL/audio/Int/JS03430A.mp3
> times per day
I don’t know. If you wanted to say “hours per day,” you would use いちにち. There are examples which use the に particle, and examples which don’t.
http://assets0.smart.fm/assets/legacy/JLL/audio/Int/JS02451A.mp3
http://assets3.smart.fm/assets/legacy/JLL/audio/Int/JS00160A.mp3
If you wanted to say “times per year,” you would use ねんに and かい.
http://assets1.smart.fm/assets/legacy/JLL/audio/Int/JS00136A.mp3
Generalizing from there, the answer is probably that you could say いちにちに なんかい.
Google (first page of results for 一日何回) confirms it:
http://www.maggiesensei.com/2010/04/15/%E9%A0%BB%E5%BA%A6hindo-frequency/
The moral of the story is that there are no rules, there is only usage. So it is a good idea to develop some research skills to answer questions like this. The smart.fm audio links I posted are from the Core 6000 sentences. You can use that set as a sort of searchable database for simple usage. You can search by kana, kanji, or English. You will of course have to use your research skills to find the set, because the old smart.fm site doesn’t exist anymore (even though their old media servers are still running…).
Of course 6000 sentences isn’t enough to cover everything. So Google is also really helpful. You can try searching for Japanese phrases, to see if they are used (like I did to find the page from maggiesensei). You can also try searching for topics in English, such as “Japanese time counter.” That search will give you a useful Wikipedia page, and a page from Tae Kim’s guide, both of which also address your questions.
一日（いちにち）can also be used as one day, in a (some day) kind of way. Wow, that’s a mouth-full.
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This topic was modified 13 years, 1 month ago by
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