• kartoffelsaft@programming.dev
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    5 days ago

    I’ve seen tons of people over the years say japanese has dozens, perhaps hundreds, of counting systems, with the strong implication that it’s this super exotic trait. Don’t get me wrong that japanese doesn’t have some super interesting features as a language, but english has literally the same system:

    • one, two, three, …
    • twins, triplets, quadruplets, …
    • bicycle, tricycle, quadrocycle, …
    • first, second, third, …
    • single, double, triple, …
    • nullary, unary, binary, ternary, …
    • primary, secondary, tertiary, …
    • etc.
    • Soulg@ani.social
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      4 days ago

      While correct about English, Japanese is still different in that you use different counters for different objects qs opposed to what you listed, which they do also have some analogues of as well. Different counter for flat things, cylindrical things, large things, small things, small animals… But at least they have the generic counter that I just use if I’m not 100% positive and it works well enough.