An hour and a half?

[FadedStardust]

I'm sure this is something that has been discussed before, but I couldn't find any hits when I searched so..... My question is quite simple really, would you express "an hour and a half" as in "I spent an hour and a half shopping" or "my class is an hour and a half long" as "yi ge xiaoshi ban," "yi ge ban xiaoshi" or something completely different? And does the format change when it's two and a half hours or three and a half, etc.? I don't think it would because Chinese sentence patterns in these types of situations seem to stay wonderfully static, but I figured I'd ask just to be on the safe side.

Thanks in advance for any/all replies!

[self-taught-mba]

"yi ge ban xiaoshi"

won't change. Good luck on your Chinese journey. Glad you're not shy to ask questions.

[gougou]

Where it does change a bit is when you are counting something without an additional measure word, such as one and a half years being yi nian ban.

[kelly1986]

both r okay, but "一个半小时” is more formal, "一个小时半“ is used in some of our region as a idiom

[necroflux]

Kelly, can you explain that a bit further? I've never heard "一個小時半" here in Taiwan - how exactly would you use it?

[FadedStardust]

Where it does change a bit is when you are counting something without an additional measure word, such as one and a half years being yi nian ban.

Yeah okay, it's like when you say "yi dian ban" meaning 1:30 instead of "yi dian sanshi fenzhong", got it, thanks.

both r okay, but "一个半小时” is more formal, "一个小时半“ is used in some of our region as a idiom

Kelly, can you explain that a bit further? I've never heard "一個小時半" here in Taiwan - how exactly would you use it?

Ohhhh, this is interesting, I always like learning about the differences used depending on which side of the Straits the speaker is on. Kelly, what regions in particular would you hear "yi ge xiaoshi ban" if I may ask?

(P.S. the reason I'm typing pinyin instead of characters is because my computer died so I can only shangwang at school, and the computers here don't have Asian IMEs enabled. So if anyone is more comfortable with characters than pinyin [i, myself, am...] please, don't hesitate to use them on my account.)

Thanks for all of the replies!

[skylee]

I've never heard of "一個小時半" either (I am in Hong Kong).

[trien27]

"yi ge xiaoshi ban" is not Chinese, but rather a direct word-for-word translation from "An hour and a half" in English.

"Yi ge ban xiaoshi" is how you'd say it in Chinese.