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> 五十音 [gojzu: on] litteraly "50-sounder" (hiragana nickname)  
>  五十 [gojzu:] 50  
>  音 [on] sound

My question is about counters in Japanese language.

At the dictionary it is said, that 音 is counter for sounds.

Well, ,,, that means, that to build "50 sounds" I have to use [number] +
[counter] + の [no] + [noun] and therefore build something like:

> 五十音の音 [gojzu: on no on] 50 sounds

With my heart I feel something wrong here, but do no know the rule to apply.  
Do I have right to use the following pattern (without counter)?

> 五十の音 [gojzu: no on] 50 sounds

If this is 100% ok, is there a rule that counter can be omitted if the counter
and the noun, which is counted -- are the same word?

* * *

_Here was a question about 目 and 第. I was recommended to publish it as
standalone one and do not mix flys and apples in one dish._
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question
counters
五十音: 50-sounder vs 50 sounds
五十音 is indeed a special case because it has specific meaning. 五十音の音 (godzu:on
no oto) would mean the sounds of those syllables, so you would need to use
五十の音 (godzu: no oto) to mean fifty sounds. For any other numbers you can just
use the counter without confusion.
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answer
First of all, 音 in 五十音 is _not_ a counter. It's true that modern Japanese (as
well as modern Chinese) requires grammatical counter, but Classical Chinese,
which makes up a great amount of Japanese vocabulary, does not. That means
characters follow a number in most of established words are not used as
counter. 十戒 "Ten Commandments" but you can't count them with 戒. 二輪車 is "two-
wheel vehicle" but you can't count tyres with 輪 (輪 _is_ a counter, but for
flowers: 二輪の花 "two (blooms of) flowers"). So 五十音 is literally "fifty sounds"
as in English, but it's a fixed phrase today that only means [a specific
alphabetical order of kana](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goj%C5%ABon) (there
are also others e.g. [iroha](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iroha)), and its
repertoire.

And 音 is indeed a counter for "sound", but as you know, sound itself is
indefinite mass like water. What this counter can count is actually "musical
unit" like notes in a score or syllables in a poem. `N 音の音` hardly makes
sense, and if we ever have to count "sounds", like in phonological discussion,
we just use 個 or -つ.

> 日本語では二つの音は違う _The two sounds are different in Japanese._  
>  この十個の吸着音を発音してください _Please pronounce these ten click sounds._

If one cannot find a suitable counter, you can dispense with it in some
situation, in this sense 五十の音 is a valid Japanese for "fifty sounds"
(generally). However, as above, 五十音の音 have little sense besides the meaning "a
sound in the kana chart".
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answer