"yi ge nu ren" vs " nu ren"

[nickname]

... same with swapping "nu" for "nan".

nu ren - woman?

nan ren - man?

What adding "yi ge" mean? I'm using Rosetta Stone and this is the only thing that is stumping me. I thought it might be a singular/plural thing, but one of the screens has both "yi ge nan ren" and "nan ren" displayed, and both images show one man.

Thanks for any advice and I am sorry if this is a repost.

[semantic nuance]

yi ge is a measure word which means a/ an. So, yi ge nu ren is a woman and yi ge nan ren, a man.

[tooironic]

Basically you just need to remember that Chinese does not make a distinction between singular and plural nouns. So nǚrén can mean both "woman" or "women" depending on the context. Hope that helps.

[brilight]

yi ge nv ren usually means one woman, occasionally means a woman.

Edited February 19, 2010 at 03:44 AM by brilight