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First Japanese Stack Exchange question :D

I'm reading a Japanese book and one of the chapter got me thinking.

The book wrote it like this:

```

    How many pencils are there ?
    えんぴつはなんぼんですか。
    
```

Can we not not replace は with を ?

Like this:

```

    えんぴつ を なんぼんですか
    
```
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-03T11:39:43.387
26150
2015-08-03T13:36:39.147
2015-08-03T13:36:39.147
10803
question
grammar particle-は counters particle-を
Can を be used when asking for how many of an object?
を denotes a direct object in a sentence. は denotes the subject. Here, えんぴつ is
the subject of the sentence, so it should have a は next to it.
CC BY-SA 3.0
2015-08-03T12:54:19.710
26155
2015-08-03T12:54:19.710
10795
26150
answer