How can we figure out how counters are read with each number?


I see from [this post](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/13548/are-
there-rules-of-thumb-for-counter-sound-changes) that there are patterns for
dakuten for counters. [This
page](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_counter_word#Euphonic_changes) is
also linked there as reference. However, I'd like to know if there is a way to
look these things up.

The reason I'm asking this question is that I cannot find the readings of each
number + counter in a dictionary and the Wikipedia page above is not a
complete index of them (like, how is 何振り pronounced for swords? なんふり？なんぶり？).
What's more, although dakuten is pretty regular, it's also pretty common for
there to be differences between counters. (For example 四本【よんほん】 and
四泊【よんぱく】have different dakuten despite being the same number)




It seems that you are touching the deepest theory of linguistics in Japanese.

What you are asking is 「連濁」(Rendaku) phenomenon in Japanese.

Please refer the following Wikipedia documents.

  1. [[In Japanese]](https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E9%80%A3%E6%BF%81)
  2. [[In English]](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rendaku)

As I've said, since you are touching the deepest theory of linguistics in
Japanese, I'm almost sure that unless a someone is PhD in Japanese who has
been working with that Rendaku phenomenon for his career, nobody can easily
answer to your question.

If you refer the English Wikipedia document that I've attached, you will read
the following.

"Despite a number of rules which have been formulated to help explain the
distribution of the effect of rendaku, there still remain many examples of
words in which rendaku manifests in ways currently unpredictable."

I did try to answer your question of [Question: Why 四本(yonn-honn) vs 四泊(yonn-
paku)?] by searching for some sources,( [[source1]](https://www.nihongo-
appliedlinguistics.net/wp/archives/9028)
[[source2]](https://marginaliae.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/%E3%81%84%E3%81%A3%E3%81%BD%E3%82%93%E3%80%81%E3%81%AB%E3%81%BB%E3%82%93%E3%80%81%E3%81%95%E3%82%93%E3%81%BC%E3%82%93%E5%95%8F%E9%A1%8C%E3%81%AE%E8%A7%A3%E6%B1%BA/))
but it seems that your example goes for the exception of rules of Rendaku
phenomenon.

It is definitely 四本(yonn-honn) to read it, but you know what. I've read a
story from some Japanese who read it as [yonn-
pon](https://detail.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/qa/question_detail/q1049417445?sort=1&page=2),
and you will see that nobody explains it why it is yonn-honn but they just
know that it is yonn-honn.

So yeah, Japanese is like that. How would you answer if someone asks you about
English when he asks why the word 'guarantee' is being read as [ɡærənˈtiː] not
[gwaranti:]? I hope you could just be familiar with the language itself rather
than thinking about its theoretical part. Many problems in language doesn't
work like math. The only way to learn language is to feel it, as you feel some
music.

Good luck!

