“Two, please”

In most languages, you can, once you learned the numbers up to ten and the word “please”, start doing your shopping without looking too bad. You just point at something and say “Two, please”. Unfortunately, this does not work in Japan. For each class of objects, you have to use the specific counter word. This adds a lot of difficulty, to the point that (so I am told) not even native speakers get it always right.
The concept is best illustrated by examples like sheets of paper. You can’t say “two papers, please”, but must say “two sheets of paper”. Like you say slices of bread, or “a table for two persons“. Only, in Japanese, a counter comes with every noun. You end up saying things like “hamsters, two-small-animals, please”, simply meaning “two hamsters, please”, or “pencil, one-long-thin-object, please”. Or you would say it, had you managed to memorize all of this. Say you learned the word for “two”, ni. But this doesn’t get you far. Two people are futari, two small animals nihiki, while for mechanical devices and household appliances you would say nidai, etc. Should you want to count more extravagant objects like, say, suits of armor, you can refer to the following extensive list.

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