Skip to content

枚

mai

If it's flat, it's one 枚

The picture A single thin, flat sheet. If you can stack them, it's 枚. Spread flat as a sheet: 枚. Slender and running long: 本.

Counting words

Where the picture shows up in 枚

  1. sheets in a stack

    この書類をコピー十枚お願いします。

    kono shorui o kopī jūmai onegai shimasu

    Ten copies of this document, please.

    Sheets sliding out of the copier one by one and settling into a stack.

  2. a slip in your hand

    チケットを二枚ください。

    chiketto o nimai kudasai

    Two tickets, please.

    Two tickets held between the fingers and handed across.

  3. clothes that lie flat

    Tシャツを三枚買いました。

    T-shatsu o sanmai kaimashita

    I bought three T-shirts.

    A T-shirt smoothed flat, folded, and laid on top of the others in the drawer.

    Only thin, flat clothing takes 枚. Jackets and suits are counted with 着 (ちゃく).

  4. a flat round disc

    ピザは一枚で足りますか。

    piza wa ichimai de tarimasu ka

    Will one pizza be enough?

    A round, flat pizza set down whole in the middle of the table.

  5. one more shot

    もう一枚写真を撮ってもらえますか。

    mō ichimai shashin o totte moraemasu ka

    Could you take one more photo?

    The shutter clicks and one more photo comes out.

All of it in one picture

Copies stack up as sheets, tickets sit flat between your fingers, a T-shirt spread out is a flat sheet too, a pizza is a flat round disc, and a photo is one more flat print. Paper, cloth, dough — the materials have nothing in common, yet all five scenes share one shape: something spread out with almost no thickness. 枚 doesn't ask what the thing is called; it looks only at that flatness. If you could stack it, count it as 一枚.

Next

See all Japanese core images