Singularity on the Plane

Because some number kanji can be read in many ways, counting can be confusing to a beginner. The kanji for 44 is simply 四十四. However, how do we read it? よんじゅうし, よんじゅうよん, しじゅうよん, or しじゅうし? Only one correct reading, or more than 1 correct way to do it?

I found a real-life example that should shed a little light on this matter. In the TV show Futarigoto, Tanaka Reina of Morning Musume shows her ability to stand using her hands and head. While doing so, she times herself, counting from 1 onwards.

This example won’t invalidate other readings, however it does give us one way to correctly count. Here’s how she counts:

1: いち
2: に
3: さん
4: し
5: ご
6: ろく
7: しち
8: はち
9: く
10: じゅう
11: じゅういち
12: じゅうに
13: じゅうさん
14: じゅうし
15: じゅうご
16: じゅうろく
17: じゅうしち
18: じゅうはち
19: じゅうく
20: にじゅう
21: にじゅういち
… (same pattern)
30: さんじゅう
31: さんじゅういち
… (same pattern)
40: よんじゅう
41: よんじゅういち
… (same pattern)
50: ごじゅう
51: ごじゅういち
… (same pattern)
59: ごじゅうく

There are two things to note, probably specific to this kind of situation. First, the “じゅう” is spoken as only 1 mora, i.e. “じゅ”. Second, if the number consists of 2 or more mora and ends with a vowel, then the final vowel is oftenly omitted or almost unheard. Therefore it sounds like “ich”, “ni”, “san”, “shi”, “go”, “rok”, “shich”, “hach”, “ku”, “ju”, “juich”, “juni”, “jusan”, “jush”, “jugo”, “jurok”, “jushich”, “juhach”, “juk”, …

(This is like “tu, wa, ga, pat, …, dua satu, dua dua, …” instead of “satu, dua, tiga, empat, …, dua puluh satu, dua puluh dua, …” in Indonesian.)

I’ve prepared the audio file (396 KB) of Reina counting. The file is in the free Ogg/Vorbis format, and Windows user might need to download the codec. It is made using Audacity, a free digital audio editor.

PS: There are some interjections between the counting. First is between 19 and 20 (”It is getting tough”) and second is after 59 (”I passed 1 minute!”). After 59, she counts from 1 again. In the end she says “Let’s stop now.”.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 19th, 2006 at 11:05 am by Agro Rachmatullah and is filed under Audio, Japanese, Study, Works. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.