마리: The Counter for Animals

To count a noun in Korean you can't just say the number — you have to attach a counter (분류사), a little word that classifies what kind of thing you're counting. For living creatures that aren't human, that word is 마리. A dog, a whale, a goldfish, a mosquito, an eagle — every non-human animal, whatever its size or species, is counted with the same single word: 개 한 마리, 고래 한 마리, 모기 한 마리. This page teaches 마리, the native numbers it takes, and the two errors that mark a beginner instantly.

English builds a zoo of collective words; Korean uses one

Here is the reframing that makes 마리 feel like a gift rather than a chore. English forces you to match a special collective noun to each species and grouping: a flock of birds, a school of fish, a herd of cattle, a pack of wolves, a swarm of mosquitoes, a head of cattle when you're being agricultural. You can't say "a school of birds" — the word is welded to the animal. English speakers absorb this menu of collectives over a lifetime and rarely notice how arbitrary it is.

Korean throws the whole menu out. Whether it swims, flies, crawls, or grazes, an animal is 마리. There is exactly one word to learn, and it never changes for species or size.

마리 takes native numbers, not Sino

Counters in Korean split into two camps depending on whether they pair with native numbers (하나, 둘, 셋 …) or Sino-Korean numbers (일, 이, 삼 …). 마리 is firmly in the native camp — it counts concrete, pointable things, and those almost always take native numbers.

That means before 마리 you use the bound determiner forms of the small numbers, not their dictionary shapes: 한, 두, 세, 네 — never ×하나 마리, ×둘 마리. If that shape-shift is new to you, it's the single most important habit in Korean counting; see the forms that change.

The word order is noun + number + 마리: the animal leads, the count trails behind it as a tag. So it's 고양이 두 마리 ("cats, two of them"), not the English-order ×두 마리 고양이. That ordering rule is covered in full on word order and spacing.

The 개 / 개 overlap: a dog is 개, and one dog is 개 한 마리

There's a small joke built into Korean here that's worth meeting head-on, because it trips people up. The everyday word for dog is 개. The general counter for inanimate objects — the "default" counter you reach for when nothing more specific fits — is also 개 (as in 사과 한 개, "one apple"). Same syllable, two completely different words.

So when you count one dog, both show up, but only one of them is a counter:

Here the first 개 is the noun "dog," and the counter is 마리 — because a dog is an animal. The object-counter 개 has no business here at all. Saying ×개 한 개 ("one dog") is like counting a dog as if it were a piece of fruit; it's exactly the mistake the next section warns against. For the object counter itself, see 개: the counter for things.

When it's not 마리: people take 명/분, objects take 개

마리 draws a hard line around one category — non-human living creatures — and you switch counters the moment you step outside it.

• People are counted with 명 (plain) or 분 (honorific): 학생 세 명, 손님 두 분. A person is never ×세 마리 — using an animal counter for a human is not just wrong, it's insulting. See 명 and 분: counting people.
• Inanimate objects default to 개 (and to shape-specific counters like 장, 권, 병 for particular forms). A phone, a rock, an apple is 한 개, never ×한 마리.

Notice how naturally the two counters coexist in one breath: 세 명 for the people, 한 마리 for the puppy. Korean makes you sort every counted thing into the right bin, and the animal bin is 마리.

Do pets count as animals? Yes — even the beloved ones

English speakers who dote on their dog sometimes reach for the people counter 명, reasoning that the pet is "family." Resist it. Grammatically, a pet is still an animal, and Korean counts it with 마리. Calling your dog 한 명 sounds odd — as if you'd mistaken it for a house guest — no matter how much you love it.

Common Mistakes

1. Using 명 (the people counter) for a pet. A beloved dog is still counted as an animal.

• ✗ 우리 강아지는 두 명이에요.
• ✓ 우리 강아지는 두 마리예요. — uri gang-ajineun du mariyeyo — "We have two puppies."

2. Using the generic object counter 개 for an animal. 개 the counter is for inanimate things; a dog needs 마리 (even though the noun "dog" is also 개).

• ✗ 개 한 개 있어요.
• ✓ 개 한 마리 있어요. — gae han mari isseoyo — "There's one dog."

3. The Sino-number slip: ×삼 마리. 마리 takes native numbers, so "three animals" is 세 마리, not the Sino 삼 마리.

• ✗ 고양이 삼 마리
• ✓ 고양이 세 마리 — goyang-i se mari — "three cats"

4. Leaving the number in its dictionary form: ×둘 마리. Before a counter the small numbers switch to their bound forms.

• ✗ 물고기 둘 마리
• ✓ 물고기 두 마리 — mulgogi du mari — "two fish"

5. English word order: ×세 마리 소. The animal comes first, the count trails.

• ✗ 세 마리 소를 봤어요.
• ✓ 소 세 마리를 봤어요. — so se marireul bwasseoyo — "I saw three cows."

Key Takeaways

• 마리 counts every non-human living creature — mammal, bird, fish, insect — regardless of species or size. Korean has no "flock/school/herd" system; it's all 마리.
• 마리 takes native numbers in their bound forms: 한 마리, 두 마리, 세 마리, 네 마리 — never ×삼 마리, ×둘 마리.
• Word order is noun + number + 마리: 개 두 마리, not ×두 마리 개.
• Pets are animals: a dog is 마리, never ×명. Switch to 명/분 only for people and to 개 only for objects.
• Beware the 개/개 overlap: the noun "dog" is 개, but "one dog" is 개 한 마리, not ×개 한 개.