Lesson 37: Getting self-conscious with より and counting with つ
より is used to compare two things in a direct way, like the "than" in "I'm smarter than you". When you use より, you do not need to use a "more" word, unlike how english needs to say "more X than Y" or "Xer than Y".
彼は誰よりも強いよ
He's stronger than anyone, dude.
より is also used in constructions about relative position (in space or time), and acts like "from" or "compared to" rather than "than" in these situations.
東京より北 North of Tokyo
新世界より From the New World
When you want to qualify an object as having a specific number/count, you don't just glue the number together with the object like you do in english ("five men"). In japanese, only "counter words" can accept numbers directly. This serves a similar role to english phrases like "four heads of cow". The most common counter word is つ.
一つ ひとつ
二つ ふたり
三つ みっつ
四つ よっつ
五つ いつつ
六つ むっつ
七つ ななつ
八つ やっつ
九つ ここのつ
十 とお (not a counter)
The above numbers come from the native japonic number system. Japanese has a second number system which it adopted from china, which begins with "ichi, ni, san ...", etc. Both systems are used everywhere, but aren't interchangeable. Some counters use only japonic numbers, some use only the numbers from china, and some use a specific mix of both, differing for different values.
Here's an example of counters in use:
もう一つ質問 Still one question
たった１つの風呂 Just one bath
でも１つ間違ってるぞ But you got one thing wrong!
In japanese, "countable words" are a closed set, made up entirely of these counters. In english, almost every word is countable. For example, "money" is an uncountable word. You can't say "I have a hundred money".