- Forum >
- Topic: Japanese >
- "テーブルが九つあります。"
"テーブルが九つあります。"
Translation:There are nine tables.
36 Comments
that's gotta be the worst slap in the face for me. those damn counters changing pronunciation all the time. i already have much more trouble learning numbers in any language and they add irregular forms literally EVERYWHERE!
Question for larger numbers, would "五十一つ" be pronounced as "go juu hitotsu"?
1] It sounds like 九 is 'ko-noto' in this sentence/ I am confused. 2] I am having issues writing the word seven out in hiragana, it doesn't seem to want to pop up. [I typed the characters きゆう but the suggestions are things other than the number 7.
I hope someone can shed light on this mystery than is Japanese language. :)
Hi there, if you look at Duolingo on the web browser version for this lesson you will see a table of the numbers and the numbers with different counters. In Japanese the numbers can change a lot depending on what you count. In this example it is 9 ( not 7, maybe you mixed up 九 and 七). Normally 九 is きゅう or く but with the counter つ it is ここの
"九つ" sounds like "kyūtsu" "kokono tsu" because it's a counter here, specifying the amount of tables.
From what I've seen every number is pronounced differently when used as a counter, for example "四つ" is pronounced "yottsu" when "四" is pronouced "yo n".
83
I guess because that would be incorrect English. If you remove the contraction, you get "there is 9 tables", which is wrong, it has to be 'there are 9 tables".
Man i feel like if i typed the actual numeral 5 i should've gotten it wrong not correct but with a typo....the 5 is nowhere near the 9 on the keyboard....
Can someone explain why テーブル has to come before 九つ? I thought numbers always precedes the nouns in Japanese language structure (correct me if I'm wrong)
I dont understand this at all, why is 九 pronounced like that. There arent even tips on this lesson, could someone please explain?
There are tips on the website! It's pretty easy to use it on a mobile browser (at least Chrome). In fact, I find the website better than the app in a lot of things, like, there are no lives/hearts, and the forum shows the date each comment was published (so it keeps you from replying to a comment made, like, 3 years ago xD).
"テーブルが九つあります" = "Teburu ga kyūtsu arimasu"
I'm not sure why "kyūtsu" sounds like "kokono tsu" if anyone could inform me I would greatly appreciate it!
"九つ" = "kyūtsu" because it's a counter here, specifying the amount of tables.
Because it actually is pronounced kokonotsu. Japanese is weird like that. When paired with the counter つ, most of the numbers change the pronunciation. 一つ (hitotsu), 二つ (futatsu), 三つ (mittsu), 四つ (yottsu), 五つ (itsutsu), 六つ (muttsu), 七つ (nanatsu), 八つ (yattsu), 九つ (kokonotsu), 十つ (too). Ten is such a weirdo. Even the つ changes pronunciation.
Thank you, bhagad, for once I DID hear it correctly, as you said, "kokonotsu". Coconuts, although 3rd syllable different is a good way to remember.
- 169
You shouldn't really think of it as numbers changing in pronunciation. They are different words altogether, in much the same way that "twelve" and "dozen" are different words in English.
Imagine someone reading the packaging of a box of 12 doughnuts and saying, "Ooh, this contains a dozen doughnuts," and then someone else replying, "That's a funny way of pronouncing the word 'twelve'!"
In English, the word "twelve" comes from a Germanic root, while the word "dozen" comes from French. The situation in Japan is a bit like that, except that instead of importing just a one-off word like "dozen", they have bought the full set - in their case, from China, rather than from France.
So Japan has a whole set of native Japanese words for numbers, and a whole set of imported Chinese words for numbers, and it uses one set in some contexts and the other set in other contexts.
TL;DR: They are completely different words, not different "pronunciations".
