Ah, but they are not synonyms, since you cannot use one for the other: you cannot use the counter for animal for things (except for puns - I let you guess what

Ah, but they are not synonyms, since you cannot use one for the other: you cannot use the counter for animal for things (except for puns - I let you guess what it means to use the counter for long, thin things to count guys). I am no specialist in Japanese, but my understanding is that a likely reason for the various counters in Japanese is linked to the absence of singular/plural and male/female distinction in nouns, verbs, etc... I don't know about Chinese, but in Japanese, you can omit a lot of words which would be mandatory in western languages (e.g. the subject). As for the OP, this is most likely cultural bias: latin has similar traits as far as grammar goes (verbs can go pretty much anywhere, for example).