Question about counters

Japanese
#1

I’m doing my daily reviews and I’ve gotten a bit into N4 territory.

Kind of unrelated to that, but I’ve come across this sentence:

一時間に十本の電車がある.

Now - I haven’t really done much research into counters, but I’m aware of their existence such as ones for small animals 匹 (ひき) etc. This sentence includes 本(ほん) for long cylindrical things (in this context trains).
I’m wondering why is this used here when train is already mentioned?

The sentence translates to “There are ten trains every hour” or literally translated “There are ten cylinders of trains every hour”.
Would dropping the “本” still leave this sentence sounding natural? Or is it similar to how in English it’s “Give me ten sheets of paper/two tubes of toothpaste” etc.?

I might be overthinking this or I just haven’t reached that grammar point.
In any case I hope I’m posting this in the right place!

5 Likes
#2

It’s like the “x sheets of paper” and “x tubes of toothpaste” “x cups of water” where x is the number. They just go together

5 Likes
#3

Ah I see. So it wouldn’t really be natural to try and omit it for sake of casual-ness or shortening, would make it sound weird like “Can I buy 2 toothpastes” or something like that?

Cheers!

3 Likes
#4

As far as I know yeah (⁠´⁠(⁠ｪ⁠)⁠｀⁠）unless someone knows otherwise (feel free to share), but from what I’ve seen and heard it’s not something that’s omitted

4 Likes
#5

That’s my experience too, when I’ve omitted a counter in writing or speaking, it’s been picked up on and corrected. For example I’d try doing 十の電車 thinking it would be ten ‘of them’ type translation.

It’s okay not to know the correct counter, I usually use the generic つ counter 9回 out of 十
see what I did there :wink:

4 Likes
#6

Would dropping the “本” still leave this sentence sounding natural? Or is it similar to how in English it’s “Give me ten sheets of paper/two tubes of toothpaste” etc.?

The latter. In Japanese, everything takes a counter, and it always takes a counter. (One arguable exception being if you are pointing at things and counting them out loud, you can count いち、に、さん、し、etc, but then you would still use a counter if you then want to say to someone that you see 八本 trains.) For a minimal example, consider the title of the famous film, 七人の侍.

8 Likes
#7

https://jyosuushi.com/ heres a great site for learning counters if you are interested!

6 Likes
#8

Thanks heaps to all the replies, very informative!

2 Likes