Piano no Mori – Numbers are Weird

The Text
Characters: Kinpira, Random Kid 1, Random Kid 2
K: 二つに一つだ！(futatsu ni hitotsu da!)
RK2: 出た！キンピラの”ちんこ見せろ”が… (deta! kinpira no “chinko misero” ga)
RK1: これは単なる度胸試しなんだからさ… (konowa tannara dokyoudameshi nanda karasa)
RK1: ピアノの音なんか出ても出なくてもどうでもいいんだよ (piano no oto nanka dete mo denaku temo doudemo ii ndayo)
RK1: こだわるな！ってば!! (kodawaru na! tteba!!)
RK1: 音なんか出なくても弾いたことになるんだよ (oto nanka denaku temo hiita koto ni narun dayo)
RK1: どーせ出るわけねーんだし (do-se daru wake ne- ndashi)

Translation
I’m trying to keep it as literal as possible while still being coherent – there’s some nontrivial idioms in here y’all.
K: It’s one of the two!
RK2: It’s come out! Kinpira’s “show your penis” [thing]
RK1: It’s just a test of courage
RK1: Whether a sound or whatever comes out of the piano or not, it’s fine either way
RK1: Don’t worry! Just saying!
RK1: Even when the piano is played, no sound comes out.
RK1: I mean, [sound] doesn’t come out no matter what right?

Numbers are weird
Looking up the etymology for this page, I got really distracted by 一 and 二. These two kanji (meaning 1 and 2) are two of the simplest characters that exist and, along with 三 (3), some of the first kanji/characters that you learn¹. However, numbers are one of the most complicated and confusing things I’ve tried to learn in Japanese. Each number has multiple pronunciations, and thus far to me, it’s not always clear which one to go with.

There is one set that is used for counting to 10, for example. Another set is used when counting the number of people in a group. Telling time is yet another. These groups overlap, and sometimes within each context you have choices. The rule, fraught with exceptions as it is, is that Chinese-derived pronunciations make up one set, and in the names of months, this set is used exclusively². I’ve seen this set called the “Sino-Japanese reading” or “On reading³“. The other set is the native Japanese pronunciation, or “Kun reading”. This set is used when counting things without specific counters⁴, but also when people just feel like it, apparently.

	Kanji	Chinese	Japanese: counting from 1 to 10	Counting people (人)5	Months (月) On-reading	Counting other things (つ) Kun reading
1	一	yi1	ichi	hito(ri)	ichi(gatsu)	hito(tsu)
2	二	er4	ni	futa(ri)	ni(gatsu)	futa(tsu)
3	三	san1	san	san(nin)	san(gatsu)	mit(tsu)
4	四	si4	shi/yon	shi(nin)	shi(gatsu)	yot(tsu)
5	五	wu3	go	go(ri)	go(gatsu)	itsu(tsu)
6	六	liu4	roku	roku(ri)	roku(gatsu)	mut(tsu)
7	七	qi1	shichi/nana	nana(ri)	shichi(gatsu)	nana(tsu)
8	八	ba1	hachi	hachi(ri)	hachi(gatsu)	yat(tsu)
9	九	jiu3	ku/kyuu	kyuu(ri)	ku(gatsu)	kokono(tsu)
10	十	shi4	juu	juu(ri)	juu(gatsu)	tou

Before you start thinking that English is so much simpler that Japanese in this respect, I just want to remind you that “first” is in no way related to “one”, nor is “second” to “two”. Also English has words like “eleven” and “twelve”, which, compared to the Chinese/Japanese 十一 and 十二 (literally ten-one and ten-two), are just extraordinarily unreasonable and unfair to English-learners.

Other things of interest
単(tan) is simplified from 單(chi: dan1), meaning single or simple. You might notice that this kanji is the right half of 弾(jap: hi)/彈(chi: tan2), meaning to play the piano. In Chinese, 單 is providing a clue to the pronunciation of 彈, while the meaning comes from the left half: 弓 is the bow in “bow and arrow”. Remember that the foundational meaning of 彈 is to be elastic/to spring back.

こだわる(kodawaru) means “to be particular about”. In kanji, it would be written 拘る. 拘(jap: kodawa, chi: ju1) means to be inflexible. In the text, こだわるな – where な makes the whole phrase negative – might be translated to something like “Chill out”.

ってば(tteba) is a shortening of と言えば(toieba), an idiom that means something like “if that’s what [someone] said”. I’m still not clear about what this means exactly, but it seems to be something like “I’m telling you!” or “Just saying!”

わけ(wake) is another one I don’t quite understand yet. The kanji is 訳, simplified from 譯(chi: yi4), meaning to translated or decipher. It seems to mark a conclusion someone is making.

References:
Jisho is Japanese dictionary I am using here.
MDBG is my all-time favorite Chinese dictionary.
Wiktionary is where all my etymology info is coming from.
An English translation of Piano no Mori can be found here, and I use this to check my work.
This IPA Chart helps me guess what words sounded like historically
Mondly has a pretty great summary chart of Japanese numbers.

^{1 TIL that there is an obsolete character 亖 that means “four”. 🙂 ↩
2 At least Japanese names months the sensible way, with numbers. None of this “January, February, March” business. No Japanese learner (or Chinese learner, for that matter) will ever forget that August is the 8th month. ↩
3 On reading, or on-yomi, are pronunciations based on the Chinese pronunciations of a characters, at the time that character was borrowed. Kanji can have multiple on-yomi if they were borrowed repeatedly throughout history, which is the case for many of them. Kun reading, or kun-yomi, is the native Japanese pronunciation for a word that shares a meaning with the borrowed Chinese character. Sometimes there are multiples of these too, if two Japanese words that are synonyms get assigned the same character. ↩
4 The concept of counters seems to confuse English-speakers a lot, but they exist in English too. In the phrase “a slice of pizza”, “slice” is the counter. Other counters in English exist in “a pair of shoes”, “a flock of geese”, “a school of fish”, “a ball of yarn”, etc. ↩
5 Why does the pronunciation of 人 change depending on how many people there are? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ ↩}