Hey guys. I teach my nephew Japanese every Saturday, and I'm going to teach numbers tomorrow. I made these drawings to help him remember and I thought I'd share with you guys in case you have a beginner you wanna teach too.

They're only scribbles, though, so you might wanna make them much nicer-looking.

いち - itchy

に - knee

さん - sun

し - shhh

ご - go

ろく - lock

なな - banana

はち - hatch

きゅう - cute

じゅう - jiujitsu

Even if it's "only" scribbles, it's so adorable and clever :)

I was confused by your 4, because I always learnt it as よん.

It's weird, よん is for when you use it with a counter word like よんこ　よんほん or when you count backwards. Same with なな. I cheated because I couldn't think of an English word that has the しち.

You're too kind!

That's weird! You use よん for counting forward and し for counting backwards. At least for older people. You can try asking older people to count forward and backwards to check this. Even older people may use し for counting forward but not the younger ones I suppose.

I love it!!

If anyone has any ideas for よん and しち, I'd love to hear them!

Sorry, I'm not quite sure if I understood you correctly.

You're saying young people say 1, 2, 3, よん, 5... counting up, but 5, し, 3, 2, 1 counting down? I've always done it the other way and never considered age (tbf, I am a geezer) might make a difference. I just tested on my kids and they do it the same as me, 1, 2, 3, し, 5... and 5, よん, 3, 2, 1. But I don't think there's a hard rule about which to use.

Thanks!

I guess that would make sense. Not just よん and し though, also for なな and しち. While young(er) people count with よん and なな, old people go with し and しち instead. Interesting part is, young(er) people also use し and しち while counting backwards. It's mostly anecdotal of course but my kanji teacher made me realize this and I found it quite interesting. However, indeed there is no rule for which one to use.