二 vs ふたつ

lanthas said:

二 is the mathematical number 2. ふたつ (二つ) means "two things" (used when counting stuff). You'll also see other variants based on what is being counted, for example 二人 (ふたり - two people), 二輪 (にりん - two flowers/two wheels) etc. See Wikipedia.

ふたつ does not mean "second month", in fact the website doesn't even say that: it correctly mentions にがつ for February. Alternatively, you can say 二ヶ月 (にかげつ) to indicate a time duration of two months.

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lanthas said:

ふた is a valid pronunciation for the number 2 according to the dictionary, but に is much more common; just use に always.

月 indeed means "month" (or "moon"). And if you look at the individual kanji for 二月 it indeed seems to mean only "two months" or "second month". However, as a word it gains extra meaning that is not indicated by the kanji, namely that it is the second month *of the year*, i.e. February. And this is the only meaning it has: it's always February. You can't use it to say "two months from now".

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Toritoribe said:

二人, 二月, 二日, 二晩, 二筆, 二服, 二振, 二言, 二箱, 二口, 二切れ, 二通り,,,,
Basically, ふた is used with kun'yomi/Japanese origin counters, but there are many exceptions, for instance, 晩 is on'yomi in the examples above or 二箱 also can be read にはこ. Plus, some words change the meaning depending on the reading. 二月[にがつ] means "February", whereas 二月[ふたつき] is "two months".

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Azarashi said:

So に is for second and ふた is two like にりん as second flower and ふたりん two flowers or i m getting it wrong? ^^ (plus りん means flower right?)

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Azarashi said:

Ok so i m just confused a bit and wanted to know if i can trust what it says because it says that 二（ni） is two and google says that ふたつ also is two but there says that ふたつ means second month. I guess i shouldn't trust what google translate says so back to my question is this site reliable? and so two is ni or futa?
Nihongo o Narau - First Year Kanji here is the site
Oh and i open it and at start everything works but then after some time i can open only what i already had opened and nothing new someone knows why?

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Toritoribe said:

Not really. You are completely misunderstanding about the concept of the counter, as already pointed out. You should read the wiki page about the counter you were provided.
The reading of 二 changes depending on the counter, not the meaning of 二. 二輪 can't be read ふたりん.

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Mike Cash said:

I would guess that the reason you're confused is that you haven't realized the page is a REFERENCE material and not intended as a LESSON. In other words, it assumes you're studying/learning the language from something else. It isn't going to make sense unless you have a certain amount of knowledge of the language to help you put it in context.

I looked over some of the "lessons" on that site. They're worth what you paid for them.

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nekojita said:

You need to start off being aware that it is not as simple as "one kanji = one English meaning". You need to learn the words in which they are used. There are many common compound words where you cannot easily guess the meaning from the separate kanji (e.g. 切手 ). There are some words which have special readings which don't match up with the readings on kanji lists (e.g. 二十歳 ).

2001.Kanji.Odyssey is a great resource. They do have some sample material you can see online. The style of their practice questions/workbook is very good in my opinion. You can also look at Erin's Challenge, (a good supplement to a textbook) because you can switch between full kanji/kana or just kana or romaji or English for pretty much everything. This site is free, and created by the Japan Foundation, so more reliable than most of the **** floating about on the internet.

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Azarashi said:

Thanks for sites I understand that they will have allot of meanings but when one place says that kanji means fire and other site says that it means tree doubts emerge and if i remember correctly that kanji didn't mean nether fire or tree.

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Azarashi said:

Thanks for sites I understand that they will have allot of meanings but when one place says that kanji means fire and other site says that it means tree doubts emerge and if i remember correctly that kanji didn't mean nether fire or tree.

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Toritoribe said:

火: fire / Tuesday
木: tree/wood / Thursday
Are you learning days of the week or something?

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Toritoribe said:

It's highly likely that you misinterpreted the two different kanji as the same kanji, I suppose.

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Toritoribe said:

I bet your memory is wrong, since that's more possible than one of the two sites you saw is wrong or the two sites are both wrong, as far as judging from your posts so far.

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