The first counters

Korean cannot say “three coffees” with the number alone: it needs a counter, a word that says what kind of thing is being counted. The order is noun, number, counter: 커피 세 잔, “coffee three cups”. Almost every counter here takes the native numbers in their short form (한, 두, 세, 네); when you do not know the right counter, 개 is understood for nearly any object.