Measure word for 工厂

[gaohan]

Hello all,

I am new here, so first of all, if it is a stupid question, my apologies. I've been studying Chinese for a while now in my free time, and I came across this problem. It is an assignment from the book "发展汉语". In this assignment I have to fill in the blanks:

我们班去一(1)工厂参观.这个工厂有三(2)大楼, blablabla...

I am a bit confused, as the book does not tell me which measure word should be used for 工厂. I did some searching, and this is what I found:

Wenlin says: 个 and 座

Yellow bridge says: 家

MDBG says: 家 and 座

When I try to understand it I come to this:

座 is used to indicate the factory building, so the material part

家 is used to indicate the busines part

个 well... 个 is just used when .... (?)

However, later in the sentence they give:

这个工厂.... So they use ge in this case. Could you also say: 这家工厂? Which one is better?

Then there is the second gap that I am not sure about see (2) in the sentence above. In the text they introduce the measure word 片 as a measure word of scope. Therefore I am inclined to believe that's the one I need to use here. Or should/could I be using 三座大楼?

Any ideas?

Gao Han

[fanglu]

My dictionary has all three (家，座，个) listed. I wouldn't use 片, unless it was a special, flat factory.

I think your breakup of jia and zuo is right. I would use ge when I didn't want to be specific.

So...

(1) could be any of the three. (2) should be zuo or ge. Having said that teachers tend to mark ge wrong when there is another possible measure word, in my experience.

[gaohan]

Thanks for your answer.

The 片 part confusion comes from a little text later where they describe the use of the measure word 片

Quote:

"片", a measure word, is used for a surface area or a scope. It refers to a ground area or a water surface here, e.g. "一片新楼" (A group of new buildings) and "一片草地" (a piece of lawn).

dang... I see now the wrong in my thinking... sorry never mind. I was thinking three buildings are a group in itself too. But three is named explicitely it does not fit the pattern given above.

I agree, 三座大楼 would make more sense...

*sigh.... got a lot to learn... *

[Lu]

I guess ge for buildings is ok, but taxi drivers always used to correct me when I used it. Zuo is better.

[YuehanHao]

As a novice, I sometimes read the bilingual Voice of America news in Chinese for study. There was a tragic story today that used the noun 工厂, specifically 化工厂。The measure word used in this article was 家。Not clear to me whether this usage fits into the breakdown mentioned in the first post, whether it was a non-standard usage, or whether just the business part of the factory was crushed by the collapsed ceiling. Anyway, link is below.

http://www.freexinwen.com/chinese/eng/news_bilingual/news/news_032309.asp

约翰好

[skylee]

Personally I prefer 家. I would also use 間. If I want to emphasise the factory building then I guess I might use 座 or even 幢. Depending on what I am writing 片 might (though it is a bit unusual) also be used if I want to emphasise a big area filled with factories.

I will not use 個.

[gaohan]

Thank you very much for your replies, they are very useful. I am still quite struggleing with the measure-word thing. Are there any online dictionaries that will show the measurewords for a word? Many only show it for a few words, by far not for all.

Sincerely,

高汉.

[skylee]

You might find these threads helpful ->

Count words list

Dictionary of measures

search results for "measure word"