gong li, ying li and chinese li

[goldie]

hi,

i'm wondering what is the most frequent words used to describe distances in chinese.

in the bbc.co.uk/languages website, the chapter on asking for directions talks about a walk taking liang li. equivalent to 1km. i'm wondering if 'li' is most common in china or do people use gong li too?

also, the lady says 'liang li di' what does the di mean in this phrase?

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/chinese/real_chinese/directions/

xie xie.

goldie

[trien27]

Gong li = Kilometer(s)

Li = [Chinese] mile(s)

Ying li = British mile(s)

Liang li di = 2 li of land

di = ground/(piece of) land/floor

It's Li, there's no such thing as a "Chinese li", unless you're explaining the differences (between Metric & Chinese or American & Chinese) to a non-Chinese or someone not familiar with the Chinese system.

[liuzhou]

Gong Li

[goldie]

thankyou to trien27,

i know that you don't say chinese li, i'm just trying to separate it from the other li's.

also, i know that di means earth, but does that make sense when you hear it in the context of "liang li di"?

and liuzhou, i always enjoy pictures of gong li. ..but it doesn't answer my question...anyone else?

[XiaoXi]

里地 is the old measurement in China before 公里. Its equivalent to half a kilometre so this is the same as saying 一公里.

[goldie]

thank you XiaoXi,

I thought 里 by itself was the measure, but if it's 里地 that makes much more sense!

i wonder why BBC's Real Chinese lesson used that in their dialogue example? is it still quite common to use 里地 as a measurement in China instead of the metric and UK equivalents?

in Taiwan we always used kilometers...

goldie

[Koneko]

It's a bit of both in Malaysia.

We use the metric system but imperial units like inches, feet and miles are still very common.

K.

[Vitas]

the title really reminded me of gong li, the movie star, at my first glance. after that i began wondering who on earth ying li was referring to?

if asked, i guess that gong li is the most frequent word among the three, but, li might be used more often in daily conversations, and one has to calculates how much gong li is equivalent to in his/her mind.

pretty much the same as the difference between gong jin ( kilogram) and ji ( 1/2 kilogram)

[DarkerBlue]

pretty much the same as the difference between gong jin ( kilogram) and ji ( 1/2 kilogram)

first, it's jin ( 1/2 kilogram),

second, NOT like gong li and li, I think jin is much more frequently used than gong jin.

(exc. People in Xinjiang only use gong jin.)