Measure words for robots
Christian Horn was reading an article in Japanese Endgadget (8/11/21) about the introduction of a new kind of robot called a "Cyberdog".
Says Christian:
You don't need to know Japanese to understand the fascinating part: in Japanese, when counting things, the type of "thing" you are counting is relevant. So you count "flat things" differently than "long shaped" things. Or machines, fish, or animals.
The article states that Cyberdog is aimed at developers, and is limited to "1000台(匹?)", showing hesitation over which measure word to use, dai 台 (counter for machines, including vehicles) or hiki 匹 (counter for small animals; counter for rolls of cloth; counter for horses). If you use dai 台 as a measure word for counting Cyberdogs, it would indicate that you think of them as machines. If you use hiki 匹 for counting them, it would indicate that you regard Cyberdogs as animals.
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