View Single Post
(#59 (permalink))
Old
masaegu's Avatar
masaegu (Offline)
永遠の愛
 
Posts: 2,573
Join Date: Jun 2007
Location: Central Tokyo
12-03-2010, 02:10 AM

Quote:
Originally Posted by KyleGoetz View Post
New question: How are 〜棟 and 〜軒 different? They both are counters for houses, right? Is one more house and one more generic building?

I get the sense that 軒 is more for houses, while 棟 is a more generic building. Especially considering other words I know like 軒並み.
That would be correct. 棟 is used to count larger buildings than regular houses. Before there were tall buildings, the word was originally used to describe an apartment house or any types of buildings with sizable horizontal lenghs.

In informal speech, however, quite a few people use 軒 to count larger buildings as well but not really the other way around.
Reply With Quote