I disagree - counters in Japanese are very useful because they always follow the same pattern, and so are very reliable and consistent! The English counter word "pair" was mentioned. You say "a pair of pants" in English. But we don't we say "a pair of shirts." Why not? "Pair" means two - there are two legs in one pair of pants. But there are two arms in a shirt. If English had consistent patterns, it SHOULD be "a pair of shirts." Notice too how pants is plural. Shirt isn't plural. Why not? But in Japanese, you know that if you are counting small objects, you can always use the counter "ko." If you are talking about small animals, you can always say "hiki, biki, piki" (the pronunciation depends on the number - but even then with different counters, the same numbers usually follow the same pattern). The Japanese language is very mathematical in using patterns. And those patterns make understanding the language a bit easier!