I am still in a very early stage in learning Japanese, and just I have just learnt some numbers and my first counter words, such as the ones for telling time and まい.
Do you ever use "regular" numbers (いち, に, さん, etc.) for anything or are they always modified (ひとつ, ふたつ, みっつ, etc.) or followed by some counter?
I still don't know any kanji; that is why I use kana, and I hope you can provide kana in your replies as well.
Answer
This isn't a dumb question at all! For the most part, you do have to modify the number, you can't just say it by itself. You can't ask for just two bottles of beer, you have to add the counter (ほん) or use ふたつ.
One scenario where you can just use the numbers is if you're just counting for the sake of counting. Like, for example, you're counting jumping jacks as you do them you'd go "いち！に！さん！し！．．．．" and so on. Or, if you're trying to count how many people there are in a room, you might say just the numbers in your head or out loud. In the end however, you need to use the counter (にん) if you wanted to tell someone the total.
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