四人

[hihlordjp]

Hello, Clay!

I just wanted to make a comment about 四人. My Japanese teacher taught me that it's よったり. I guess it's the old reading. My teacher is rather old after all, hehe. Is that reading still in use now?

[clay]

Interesting. I found it in the Kojien J-J dictionary and according to it, it can be pronounced with or without the small っ - yotari or yottari.

Yumi had never heard that pronunciation. And the dictionary doesn't have any more info, so I guess it is a pretty rare reading? Perhaps your Sensei is from an area where this pronunciation is the norm.

Ask your sensei about 3 people - sannin. Just for fun, I also looked that up and found a reference to mitari.

[hihlordjp]

clay wrote:
Interesting. I found it in the Kojien J-J dictionary and according to it, it can be pronounced with or without the small っ - yotari or yottari.

Yumi had never heard that pronunciation. And the dictionary doesn't have any more info, so I guess it is a pretty rare reading? Perhaps your Sensei is from an area where this pronunciation is the norm.

Ask your sensei about 3 people - sannin. Just for fun, I also looked that up and found a reference to mitari.

Oh, I see. hehe I remember that when 曹先生 was teaching me how to count people, he taught me that there were only three exceptions: ひとり、ふたり、よったり. The rest, as he said, were all "regular". He taught me that three people is さんにん.

みたり？ I guess that reading is much like よったり in its rarity.