Chinese (Mandarin)/Lesson 5

=Lesson 5: Measure words=

Measure Words/量词(liàngcí)
1. 这本书里没有一个汉字.
 * Zhè bĕn shū lǐ méi yŏu yí gè Hànzì.
 * This book doesn’t contain one Chinese character.

2. 那间宿舍有六十个学生.
 * Nà jiān sùshè yŏu liùshí ge xuésheng.
 * That dorm has sixty students.

The phrase 一朵花 (yī duǒ huā) means "one flower," but how would you say "a pile of flowers?" It's simple: just change the classifier. The phrase 一堆花 (yī duī huā) means "a pile of flowers." You could also say 一把花 (yī bǎ huā; a handful of flowers), 一桶花 (yī tǒng huā; a bucket of flowers), or 一种花 (yī zhǒng huā; a kind of flower). You can see that measure words act as adjectives.

In Chinese, like in English, you can omit the noun if it's already known, leaving only the classifier. 你看到那种（花）吗？ (Nǐ kàn dào nà zhǒng (huā) ma?) means "Did you see that kind (of flower)?" You can see that measure words also act as nouns.

Measure words are also used with demonstrative pronouns (this, that). For example, 这朵花 means "this flower," and 那朵花 means "that flower."

You might also encounter something like this: 书架上有书本. (Shūjià shàng yǒu shūběn.) which means "The bookshelf has books on it." Note that the classifier is after the noun. This signifies multiple books where the exact number is not important, here translated "books." The sentence 书架上有书. , means the same as above, but is without the classifier.

Some Common Measure Words
Column key: Trad. is Traditional, Simp. shows changes made for the simplified variant (if any).

See Chinese measure words on Wikipedia for a more complete reference.