Numbers are such a pain to learn in any language. They're just ugly and un-fun to me, compared to other grammar structures. And learning them in Japanese is like hell on Earth due to counters and differentiating thousands vs. ten thousands vs. arrgghhh. Yeah, yeah, I'm procrastinating with my complaining.
In Japanese, も can be added to the end of a number word to give it an "as many as" effect. I realize that sounds strange, so let me give Genki's example sentences.
私の母は猫を三匹も飼っています。
My mom owns three, count them, three cats.
昨日のパーティーには学生が二十人も来ました。
As many as twenty students showed up at the party yesterday.
These sentences make it relatively easy to understand what effect も is having on the number. It's a sort of emphasis on that number.
The same thing can be done in the negative sense to say "as few as" or "only." For this, しか is added after the number word. Also, a HUGE note here, the verb must be in the negative.
私は日本語の辞書を一冊しかもっていません。
I have only one Japanese dictionary.
この会社にはパソコンが二台しかありません。
There are only two computers in this company.
So again, も tends to emphasize the "largeness" of the number (and uses positive verbs), while しか emphasizes the "smallness" of it (and uses negative verbs).
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