Japanese Language is Fun! - Lesson 11.1

Numbers! Digits! Counters! Amount! $!! Collective nouns!

Is what we are going to learn in this chapter. But hold on! Do you still remember numbering in Japanese?? Haaaa, all you need to do is click on earlier lesson as well as Lesson 5.1

How many?

"How many" in Japanese is depending on Object or Person (please refer Lesson 10.2 and Lesson 10.3)

OBJECT ga IKUTSU/NAN-MAI/NAN-DAI arimasu ka

PERSON wa [ga] NAN-NIN imasu ka

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We starts with "How many person/people" first because it's much easier.

We can ask :-

"How many family member you have?" Kazoku wa nan-nin imasu ka
or "How many sibling(s) you have?" Kyodai wa nan-nin imasu ka
*For family, we can include ourselves, but not for sibling*

**'ga' is not compulsory**

We can answer like this :-

Kyodai wa 5-nin [ga] imasu

~ ani [ga] hitori to ane [ga] futari to imouto hitori to otouto hitori ga imasu

I've 5 siblings

~ 1 elder brother & 2 elder sisters & 1 younger sister & 1 younger brother

Special case :- 

The only child (anak tunggal) : Hitori dake desu

I've no children : Kodomo ga imasen

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Other example:-

Kyoshitsu [no naka] de nan-nin ga imasu ka
In [inside] a class, how many person

OR more details

Kyoshitsu [no naka] de otoko no hito to onna no hito ga nan-nin imasu ka

In [inside] a class, how many man and woman

Kyoshitsu [no naka] de otoko no ko to onna no ko ga nan-nin imasu ka

In [inside] a class, how many boy and girl

  1 - hitori

  2 - futari

  3 - san-nin

  4 - yon-nin

  5 - go-nin

  6 - roku-nin

  7 - nana-nin

  8 - hachi-nin

  9 - kyu-nin

10 - ju-nin

Next entry ---> How many item