いろいろな生き物の足の数を数えよう

How do you count legs (and long thin things) in Japanese?

Counting legs in Japanese means reaching for 本 (hon) — the counter for long, thin objects. A person has 二本 (nihon) of legs, a dog 四本 (yonhon), a spider 八本 (happon). The surprise for learners is that this same 本 also counts pencils, bottles, umbrellas, and roads — anything long and slender — and that its pronunciation keeps shifting with the number.

Those shifts are the classic 本 trap: 一本 ippon, 二本 nihon, 三本 sanbon, 六本 roppon, 十本 juppon. Handy to know: the kanji 本 also means “book” as a noun — but as a counter it tallies long, thin things, not books. Legless creatures like fish and snakes get ゼロ本 (“zero”), which the clip cheerfully counts too.