Beginning Japanese for Professionals: Book 1

94 yakiniku やきにく 焼き肉 yakiniku (Korean BBQ beef) yakisoba やきそば 焼きそば yakisoba (Stir-fried noodles) shouyu しょうゆ 醤油 soy sauce miso みそ 味噌 miso shio しお 塩 salt koshou こしょう 胡椒 pepper satou さとう 砂糖 sugar Grammar Notes 4-4-1 More Classifiers: ~hon 、 ~tsu In Lesson 3, it was explained that when counting things in Japanese, numbers are combined with specific classifiers that are conventionally used for the nouns being counted. We add two classifiers, ~hon 、 ~tsu , in this lesson. The classifier ~ hon is used to count long cylindrical objects such as bottles, pens, umbrellas, bananas, etc. The classifier ~ tsu is the most generic classifier, which can be used for both tangible and intangible items such as opinions, meetings, etc. It is also used for items that do not have a special classifier. So, it may be a safe choice when you are not sure what classifier to use. There are two numerical systems in Japanese: one of Chinese origin, which was introduced in Lesson 3, and another system of Japanese origin. The latter only goes up to the number ten. 1 hito , 2 futa , 3 mi , 4 yo , 5 itsu , 6 mu , 7 nana , 8 ya , 9 kokono , 10 tou The classifier ~ hon is combined with Chinese numerals. Note that alternatives for ~ hon are ~ pon (for 1, 6, 8, 10) and ~ bon (for 3 and how many). The classifier ~ tsu is combined with Japanese numerals and for quantities over ten Chinese numerals without a classifier are used: juu-iti, juu-ni, juu-san, etc.