Spelling counts!

Japanese words are all singular since they use counter words to determine quantity. So one kimono is the same as ten kimono, the same as ten samurai or ten katana. It's really confusing to English speakers because we have that s at the end.

Is it the same in English? After all, English does have plural nouns, so isn't the plural of "kimono" "kimonos"?

I suppose it's the same argument as pluralising Latin loanwords; forum, stadium, codex, etc.

but I definitely agree something should be said on the useful notes page about the Japanese plural system.

If the Useful Notes/Japanese Language page is ever amended to mention this, the stinger on Katanas Are Just Better should probably be redirected to that, rather than Grammar Nazi.

edited 7th Feb '11 1:10:44 AM by AndrewGPaul

According to the Random House Dictionary as quoted on dictionary.com, the plural of "kimono" is indeed "kimonos". That's because it's an actual loanword that's made its way into the English language. The same would not necessarily be true of random Japanese words for which that isn't true.

I'll make the addition to the Useful Notes page.

Japanese is a rather complicated language when it comes to plurals if you are comparing to English. "There are two hamburgers" translates into "Hamburger niko ga arimasu". "Niko" is the counter word for "two round objects". In English you change the subject with an s or an alternate form (think mouse and mice), in Japanese you change the counter but keep the noun the same. It's as if every noun in Japanese is like fish or moose in English.

I guess when they use Japanese for loanwords they change it, though I've never seen it in action. If you want to revert my changes, I won't challenge you.

No, I understand that - at least the concept if not the details. What I was getting at was that the English useage of a foreign loanword doesn't (shouldn't?) necessarily follow the grammatical rules of the language it came from.

I'm not going to change the page, if you've at least made it consistent. I only brought it up because it was the one example I could remember of a page which looked to have been written by a non-English speaker.