A minor complaint from someone who is new

Yeah, that’s basically my read.

It’s the other way around for me: 歳 being almost twice as common. Did you get the numbers mixed up, or is Google search personalization just that weird? (I wouldn’t be surprised)

image image

The contrast is even starker for older ages: “52歳” has about seven times the hit count of “52才”.

1 Like

I actually do not use Google generally, was not logged in and clear my cookies frequently so the only thing it could personalize to is country of IP address, which should not make much of a difference when the content is Japanese, only spoken in Japan. Not sure what is going on here. If there is any personalization it is in your end. The prevalence did switch for older ages though compared to 10.

Did some searching and found this on hinative:

" 歳 is the correct usage, when expressing age.
才 is usually used by up to elementary school children.
child feel difficult to write 歳,so Insted of 歳,they use 才." with someone else adding that 才 is often used in informal settings.

So the switch in prevalence I found would make sense.

1 Like

for children’s age use this 才 while 歳 is used for people older than children. Both are used for age. Hope it helps.

1 Like

The most obvious difference is that counters in the traditional sense are usually for distinct, separate entities - at least all the examples I can think of now are. Whether it’s cars, coins or loaves of bread. But age is a compound thing rather than separate, distinct entities, so from this perspective I agree it seems conceptually different. No matter how old you are, you only have one age at any one time. I wouldn’t refer to it as an age counter in English. Just weighing in because I found this a very interesting thought :smiley:

4 Likes

About the 歳 versus 才 question: I found a nice site in Japanese about it, could count as a little reading practice :wink:

It basically boils down to this ^^

3 Likes

Just curious, is English your first language? different languages have different ways of expressing age, like in French you’d say, “I have 17 years”, which feels more count-y.

Either way, as others have said, do what works for you. I tend to think of kanji as symbolizing abstract concepts (so as long as I am close, I don’t worry too much) , and then the vocab as actual words.

3 Likes

First pick up an override script- you gotta be relatively responsible about it and not use it for answers you genuinely got wrong, but it’s a lifesaver for typos, especially on your current level kanji. I’ve been sent back a full day or more on a level because I got one really important kanji wrong with a typo. It’s, like, maybe the most frustrating feeling that exists in this world.

Second, you can add synonyms for meaning. When you get an answer wrong or right, hit that middle button with the eye on it to see the meaning, and underneath the list of acceptable answers, there’s an option to add user synonyms. I use that a ton, some items I have upwards of 5-7 synonyms because they’re all applicable, and for some reason the same one never comes to mind. If you get an answer wrong with a near identical term, add that synonym and any others you can think of.

1 Like

Interesting! Never considered this. At least in English you still use the plural form years. In Dutch it’s simply “I am 17 year”, although “17 years old” is grammatically possible, it makes you sound 107 years old.

1 Like

Yeah I would expect Germanic languages to have that in common. Spanish also does the same thing as French: Tengo 43 años. Lit. I have 43 years.

1 Like

This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.