Friday, 15 August 2008

About 'Measure word'/量词 in Chinese

Measure words also exist in English, but are usually used for uncountable nouns such as water or tea. For example, a cup of tea, a glass of water, and a flock of sheep. While measure words are required for most nouns in Chinese, the common used ones are only about 40, many of which are nouns themselves. In addition, they also follow certain general guidelines. This means that the use of the measure words is not as complicated as they may seem to be.

So far, we have learned the following measure words;

个 (gè ): a general measure word (probably the most widely used one)
瓶 (píng) : bottle of; bottle
盒 (hé):  carton/box/pack of ; carton/box/pack
块 (kuài): block of; block
杯 (bēi):  cup/glass of; cup/glass
碗 (wan): bowl of; bowl
盘 (pán): plate/dish of; plate
把 (ba): handful of
斤 (jīn): 500 gram
张 (zhāng): piece of
包 (bāo): bag of; bag

Now, can you give the right measure word(s) to the following nouns?

a. 1 ( ) 报纸
b. 5 ( ) 地图
c. 4 ( ) 口香糖
d. 7 ( ) 牛奶

Could you please leave your answers using the comment function of this blog? I'll reveal the right answer some time later. :)

Have fun,
Lijing

4 comments:

Unknown said...

a. 1 (张) 报纸 1 piece of Newspaper
b. 5 (个) 地图 5 maps
c. 4 (块) 口香糖 4 blocks of chewing gum
d. 7 (瓶) 牛奶 7 bottles of milk


hee hee... I will be happy if I get one right :)

Unknown said...

Changed my mind for maps...

5 (张) 地图 5 piece of maps

Dr Shi said...

My Answers:
a. 张/份
b. 张
c. 块/包/盒/条
d. 瓶/盒/杯

amywong said...

a. zhang
b. zhang
c. bao
d. ping