3. Japanese Figure

3-1: Figure and Time

 Prometheus was punished by Zeus for he had given fire to human. But he should not have been punished as hard as a god who give the idea of figure to human. Primitive people did not know the figures more than three. Since human get the idea of figure to count freely, they have been able to construct civilization and in the time when they use figure for their civilization, the destruction of nature began truly.

 It means that the idea of figure is very necessary for human civilized life. Japanese system of counting is very easy to understand. As you saw the matrix of its pronunciation, it can be shown as following.
 

	10,000	1,000	100	10	1
	man	sen	hyaku	juu/ju
0  zero/rei	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A
1  iti	iti-man	sen	hyaku	juu/ju	iti
2  ni	ni-man	ni-sen	ni-hyaku	ni-juu	ni
3  san	san-man	san-sen	sam-byaku	san-juu	san
4  yon/shi	yon-man	yon-sen	yon-hyaku	yon-juu	yon/shi
5  go	go-man	go-sen	go-hyaku	go-juu	go
6  roku	roku-man	roku-sen	rop-pyaku	roku-juu	roku
7  shichi/nana	shichi-man	nana-sen	nana-hyaku	shichi-juu	shichi
8  hachi	hachi-man	hachi-sen	hap-pyaku	hachi-juu	hachi
9  kyu/kyuu	kyuu-man	kyuu-sen	kyuu-hyaku	kyu-juu	kyu/kyuu

If you want to say ’23,554’ in Japanese, you only to say ‘(ni-man)+(san-zen)+(go-hyakuu)+(go-juu)+ (yon)’. Even if some parts of pronunciation have liaison, you can construct figures by the combination of ‘iti to kyuu’ and ‘juu to man’. If you want to represent more big figure than 99,999, you only to repeat ‘juu etc.’ before ‘man’, as 100,000 is ‘juu-man.

 The way to tell time is also easy. If you want to say 5:20, you only to go-ji ni-juu-pun (hun) . It is said that modern civilization began sharing common the idea of time. When timetable was made for train, modern age became possible.
 

3-2: The numerous in Japanese

 Japanese has numerals after counted numbers. What is difficult point for students is it become change according to what is counted. If you count books, you must add ‘satzu’ after its number. This custom may be similar to the sense ‘one kind of ---‘, ‘two pieces of ---’ or $100. It reflects some concrete image of what is counted. Sometimes it has liaisons and seems more difficult. But what students should learn is only to know some representative numerals. And if you count something fewer than ten number, you only to add ‘tsu’ after the number.