this is kind of basic but I still found this oddly addictive.
A song to help kids memorize numbers and counting words using puns.
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I honestly didn’t know 艘 before listening to the song.
What is happening with the grammar though. What is this でも? My head seems to not be working this early in the morning, I’m drawing a blank.
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Haha. That is a good video to memorize the Japanese various counters.
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took me a while to understand too, it’s actually quite “clever” (at least for a children’s song)
take the first line for example (writing in romaji cause i don’t have japanese on this pc):
ippon demo ninjin = even though it’s ONE (ippon = ichi), it’s NI (two) njin (i.e. carrot)
nisoku demo sandaru = even though it’s TWO (nisoku = ni), it’s SAN (three) daru (i..e sandal)
sansou demo yotto = even though it’s THREE (sansou = san), it’s YO (four) TTO (i.e. boats)
because of the puns where each line begins the way the previous one ended (SANdal, of which there are two, becomes the SAN of the next item of which there are THREE)
so the “demo” plays the role of contrast - “even though the amount is X1, look - we’re talking about the object Y1, which actually sounds like the next number X2”!
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