3074
According to people I've asked, and [this
page](http://www.sf.airnet.ne.jp/~ts/japanese/counter.html), if I pay 20
Australian dollars for my meal, it seems I say ni ju doru (20-ドル), and that ni
ju-en doru (20-えん-ドル) would be ungrammatical - "dollar" acts as the counter.

Is it possible to refer to the Australian dollar as a noun in other
circumstances (eg while talking about how the dollar fared on the exchange
market)? If so, is this only because it's a loanword, or can the same apply
with native Japanese words?
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-09-08T13:24:21.283
3072
2011-12-29T05:44:01.533
2011-12-29T05:44:01.533
91
question
numbers counters
Can counter words also be nouns?
A quick Google search brought me to [this Amazon
page](http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%BC%B7%E3%81%84%E5%86%86%E3%81%AF%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%81%AE%E5%9B%BD%E7%9B%8A-%E6%A6%8A%E5%8E%9F-%E8%8B%B1%E8%B3%87/dp/4492395008)
for a book with title 「強い円は日本の国益」, which is an example where the counter for
Japanese Yen 円 is used as a noun to refer to the currency unit, thus I believe
counter words for currencies can be used as nouns.

![enter image description here](https://i.stack.imgur.com/fj2VB.jpg)

EDIT: StackExchange engine breaks the Amazon Japan link again so here are the
raw URL (you need to copy-paste):
<http://www.amazon.co.jp/%E5%BC%B7%E3%81%84%E5%86%86%E3%81%AF%E6%97%A5%E6%9C%AC%E3%81%AE%E5%9B%BD%E7%9B%8A-%E6%A6%8A%E5%8E%9F-%E8%8B%B1%E8%B3%87/dp/4492395008>
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-09-08T14:08:53.793
3074
2011-09-08T15:50:59.427
2011-09-08T15:50:59.427
15
112
3072
answer
I think there are some coincidences, but for the most part I don't think you
can just use a counter suffix as its own noun. Unless you're explicitly using
it as the topic of a sentence to describe what the counter means.

For example, `匹【ひき】` (counter for animals) could not be used as a noun by
itself...unless your sentence is 「『匹』とは小さな動物を数える助数詞です。」("Hiki" is a counter
for counting small animals.

I previously said that there are some coincidences. For example, `一本【いっぽん】`
means 1 cylindrical object. Now `本` by itself _is_ a word -- "book". But you
would never use it by itself in the context of a cylindrical object; only as a
book.

Likewise, `〜頭【とう】` is used for counting "heads of animals" like cows, etc.
(see posts [HERE](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2805/counter-
for-bears-or) and [HERE](https://japanese.stackexchange.com/questions/2800/or-
for-horses) for discussions about which animals can be counted this way). `頭`
by itself is `あたま` (or less frequently, `かしら` or `こうべ`) and means "head". But
you would never use `頭` by itself in the context of "heads of animals".
CC BY-SA 3.0
2011-09-08T15:02:03.213
3077
2011-09-08T15:02:03.213
2017-04-13T12:43:44.863
-1
78
3072
answer