いつ.つ

[TheEnglishKnitter]

Please can anyone tell me what the つ.つ means here.

I have dutifully learnt my kana and some japanese in romaji and I have just bought Clay's 100 Kanji book for my Kindle (love the book, perfect for my next step).
Is the いつ the kun-yomi for number 5?
What is the .つ which appears after every number written in kun-yomi?
These are the kana transcriptions for the kanji on the right-hand side of the page.

TheEnglishKnitter

[becki_kanou]

It shows which is the reading of the kanji itself, and which are the okurigana.

五つ（いつ.つ）

[TheEnglishKnitter]

So I should learn by rote the .つ for each kun-yomi number they apply to so that when I write them they will be read correctly because you can't write the kanji without the suffix .つ ?
ok, thx

[richvh]

Not quite. The kanji can be written without any okurigana, in which case it's read ご. By itself, 五 is "the number 5"; 五つ (いつつ) however is "five (random) items." Most counters will take the onyomi (五本 ごほん "five long thin objects", 五年 ごねん "five years"), a few will take the kunyomi (五日 いつか "5 days") and these you'll just have to memorize.

[micahcowan]

Just to be clear, and apologies if you already understand this, but it's not normally written いつ.つ; that's just for expository purposes in your Kanji reference book, to separate the reading for the character, with okurigana that is likely to follow that reading (and gives you a clue to use that reading). In real Japanese, it'll simply be written いつつ or 五つ.

一つ　二つ　三つ　四つ　五つ
ひとつ・ふたつ・みっつ・よっつ・いつつ

一日　二日　三日　四日　五日
ついたち・ふつか・みっか・よっか・いつか

一人　二人　三人　四人...
ひとり・ふたり・さんにん・よんにん (or よにん)...