Proper use of numbers

daigre7

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OK, I'm using Rosetta Stone Japanese Level 1 and I'm about to finish Unit 1 and this is the first thing I've come across I haven't almost immediately comprehended. The last lesson I started is bringing in numbers 1-6 and counting objects using those numbers. I'm very confused on the correct use of numbers when counting objects.
For example you have the phrases, "beddo ga ikko," "kurama ga ichidai," and "sakana ga ippiki imasu." Roughly translated, I believe each of those phrases is saying there is one of each object, bed, car and fish. According to the program, the Japanese word for the number one is "ichi." Why do numbers get changed so drastically when counting different types of objects? I'm not seeing any real pattern.
 
ichi, ni, san, shi/yon... are numbers that originally came Chinese.
hi, fu, mi, yo... are the original Japanese mumbers.

When counting things, we usually put "counters" at the end.
You'll find the explanation on counters here:
Counting and Counters (Tae Kim's Japanese grammar guide)
Numbers and Counting - Tae Kim's Japanese grammar guide

More on counters (Wikipedia Japanese Grammar)
Japanese/Grammar/Counters - Wikibooks, open books for an open world

hitotsu, futatsu, mittsu, yottsu... is another way of counting based on Japanese numbers.
(They're a sort of combined form of number and counter.)

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Edit: oops, Toritoribe san beat me!
 
Wow, a lot of counters and exceptions. Like I said, I was understanding everything perfectly until counting. Although, I'm still in the first unit, so I'm sure the program gets much more in depth with it. The links really helped though, thanks to all.
 
I'm pretty sure that "yon" is not Chinese in origin. Good information otherwise, though :-)

Thank you JimmySeal for pointed it out! Indeed yon is Japanese, no Chinese origin.
:p I should have written "shi" only for 4.
My big "sorry" to the people who got the misleading info through my post... :sorry:
 
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