I hate studying numbers in foreign languages.

I'm a bit of an impulsive guy, so I've started studying who-knows-how-many new languages over the years.

It starts out fun. Exciting!

But about four lessons into [new language], the books start talking about numbers. Sometimes I just skip these chapters/lessons because they're simply too boring for me. How am I supposed to focus when they're just writing lists of numbers? Leave me alone!

...but it's kind of embarrassing if you can have a simple conversation with someone but you can't count to ten.

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I'm sorry to tell you this, but learning numbers in Japanese is not easy.

This is because they have counters, which are different words/patterns for counting different types of things.

Consider the number 一 (いち // one).

At first glance, counters seem to make some kind of sense:

一番（いちばん // No. 1; the best）
一日（いちにち // one day）
一枚（いちまい // one [flat object]）

But then we also have:

一つ（ひとつ // one [thing]）
一日（ついたち // the first day of the month; the 1st）
一才（いっさい // one year old）
一本（いっぽん // one [long and narrow object]）
一杯（いっぱい // one [cupful]）
一個（いっこ // one [small thing]）

Are you starting to see why counting is so confusing in Japanese?

But don't start crying yet. I have a simple solution:

Step #1 - We'll learn the basic numbers 1 to 12.
Step #2 - We'll learn the most useful counter-form of the numbers 1-10.
Step #3 - I'll continue to write these at the beginning of each travel lesson.

↑ Those first two items seem self-explanatory, I think. The third one is what I should be doing when I study languages today. I just find it too boring to really sit down and study numbers, so it would be better to just quickly read though them fifty days in a row until they feel like second nature to me. Maybe that'll work for you, too.

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First, here is 1 to 12:

一（いち // one）
二（に // two）
三（さん // three）
四（よん・し // four）
五（ご // five）
六（ろく // six）
七（なな・しち // seven）
八（はち // eight）
九（きゅう // nine）
十（じゅう // ten）
十一（じゅういち // eleven）
十二（じゅうに // twelve）

You might be wondering why we have two readings for 4 and 7:
四（よん・し // four）
七（なな・しち // seven）

The readings of these numbers vary depending on the context in which they are used. For the most part, this is just something that you'll learn naturally over time. One interesting thing that I have noticed is that Japanese people use し and しち when counting from 1 to 10, but they use よん and なな when counting from 10 to 1.

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One way in which knowing numbers will be helpful is navigating train platforms at stations around Japan.

After one of the numbers listed above, just add ～番 (ばん), which means "number" and ～線 (せん), which means "line" (both a line that you draw and a train line).

Accordingly, you may hear these words over the station intercoms:

一番線（いちばんせん // Platform One）
二番線（にばんせん // Platform Two）
三番線（さんばんせん // Platform Three）
四番線（よんばんせん // Platform Four）
五番線（ごばんせん // Platform Five）
六番線（ろくばんせん // Platform Six）
七番線（ななばんせん // Platform Seven）
八番線（はちばんせん // Platform Eight）
九番線（きゅうばんせん // Platform Nine）
十番線（じゅうばんせん // Platform Ten）
十一番線（じゅういちばんせん // Platform Eleven）
十二番線（じゅうにばんせん // Platform Twelve）

↑ Knowing those is also useful for when a station attendant tells you which train you should board!

Signs for platforms will probably use Arabic numerals, by the way. So you'll see things like 3番線 and 12番線 instead of 三番線 and 十二番線. But using kanji is good reading practice for us.

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Counting Things

You roll into the basement of a department store (something you absolutely must do while in Japan) and decide to order some awesome-looking sweets from a shop clerk.

You want "one."

...so you need to say "One ください" (=One, please.)

This sounds very strange:

✖ 一ください。
✖ いち　ください。
✖ One, please.
✖ Literally: “one + please.”

Instead of saying 一 (いち) for "one," you need to use a counter.

That is, you need to say "One (thing), please." That would be:

一つください。
ひとつ　ください。
One, please.
Literally: “one (thing) + please.”

There's a bit more to it than that―for example, you'll probably want to say "One of these, please" or "One of those, please," which we'll get to in a later lesson―, but that's the gist of what we need to say.

～つ is the ending for what I like to think of as the "general counter" in Japanese. Anytime you want to talk about a number of things, you can use this. Later, when you get better at Japanese, you can use more specific counters.

In short, you need to memorize all of these:

一つ（ひとつ // one [thing]）
二つ（ふたつ // two [things]）
三つ（みっつ // three [things]）
四つ（よっつ // four [things]）
五つ（いつつ // five [things]）
六つ（むっつ // six [things]）
七つ（ななつ // seven [things]）
八つ（やっつ // eight [things]）
九つ（ここのつ // nine [things]）

Yeah... irregular readings everywhere. This is your life now.

I'd put extra focus on the smaller numbers by the way. You'll use them more often.

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Sadly, this is not enough.

Even if you just want to get around Japan using some Japanese, there are more number variations that you should learn.

For example, you'll want to be able to say how many people are in your party at a restaurant, how many days you plan to stay in Kyoto, the day your flight is scheduled, and so on.

No need to panic, though. We'll go through all of these as we get to those specific travel topics. For now, we can just focus on simple numbers and general counters.

One step at a time, yeah?

頑張ってください！
がんばって　ください！
Hang in there! // Good luck! // Do your best!
Literally: "keep at it / do your best (and) + please!"
Note: There is no good English translation for this. Sorry.