Why Kanji "Ichi tsu" pronounced hito?


[![enter image description
here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/x7fPa.png)](https://i.stack.imgur.com/x7fPa.png)

As I was reading the book, I found the above table. Here, one thing=hito.
Though Ichi ju made much more sense to me as an absolute beginner (Assuming,
"hito" is another word to describe one thing). But in the Kanji I saw "ichi
tsu" for "one thing". But the furigana says its hito. So is the tsu from
hiragana or it's another syllable in Kanji (I think I have seen similar Kanji
before but don't know the pronunciation)?




If I understand your question correctly, you are asking why "一つ" (for 'one
thing') is read as "hito", and not "ichi tsu"?

The answer is, neither of those is correct. "一つ" is read as "hitotsu". You can
see that the "hito" (ひと) is written _only_ above the "一" kanji. This indicates
that the reading "hito" is only applied to the "一" kanji, not to the whole
word "一つ". Thus the whole word is pronounced "hitotsu". You can see this
reflected in くんよみ row at the top of the diagram which lists ひと（つ）. This means
that whatever is in parentheses is not part of the kanji's reading, but extra
hiragana needed for the word (these extra hiragana are called "okurigana").

Here are some other words that use the "hito" reading: [一人]{hito・ri},
[一言]{hito・koto}, [一目]{hito・me}




Japanese has both Japanese-origin numbers and Chinese-origin numbers for
counting.

いち ichi に ni さん san し shi ... come from Chinese

ひとつ hitotsu ふたつ futatsu みっつ mittsu よっつ yottsu ... come from Japanese

In the general counter specifically (〜つ), Japanese-origin numbers are used
which is why it's hitotsu and not ichitsu

<https://www.tofugu.com/japanese/counting-in-japanese/>

