A Daily Dose of Measure Words

[ChouDoufu]

I've been thinking and writing about Chinese measure words a lot recently.

When just starting out, they seem really hard to learn and use. I've been looking into a method of helping people learn measure words by using stories from everyday life to illustrate when and how to use measure words.

Here's a link to the most recent post where I go through my day listing the things I might do on a typical day.

What does your daily dose of measure words look like?

[WestTexas]

Honestly I feel like there are probably a couple dozen measure words that you really need to know; the rest are not that useful. I remember in Chinese class in the US we had to learn all sorts of measure words. The teacher told us that they were very important and that Chinese people do not use 个 very often. Well, I have been in China for three years now and I think she just told us that to make us study more. There are useful measure words like 条，张，位，瓶 etc but, for many measure words, 个 works just as well and is even what Chinese people use 90% of the time. I feel like some of the words I learned, like 扇 for doors, just aren't that useful. Just my 2 cents, maybe I am wrong, but I feel like outside of formal speech there are really only 20-30 measure words that you actually need to know.

[abcdefg]

I like your blog posts about measure words. Gives an interesting look into learning the language. I seldom think about measure words for verbs. But that's another topic, well covered in older threads.

Once a couple years ago I was meeting a friend at the entrance to a park. I waited for her a while near the ticket window and just for the heck of it listened to people telling the seller how many tickets they wanted. About one out of three said 三张票, while the others said 三个 and left the 票 unsaid.

I suppose the 老百姓 doesn't always get it right.

[skylee]

Perhaps the 個 referred to the number of visitors? I don't know, perhaps it referred to the number of tickets. Personally I won't use 個 for 票.

I think how one talks (accent, vocabulary, tone, manner) reflects many things about him/her.

[abcdefg]

Perhaps the 個 referred to the number of visitors?

Yes, that certainly could be. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume it was instead of concluding they used bad grammar.

[milhaus]

I have a Taiwanese girlfriend. When we speak about our two cats, sometimes she says "牠們兩個". But I think the best way is just to use the appropriate measure word. I personally try to remember every noun's measure word. Of course there are some general measure words, for example 張 for flat things etc., but it's better not rely on it.

[xianhua]

Now that the 2012 Olympic games are underway and China's medal tally will be a constant hot topic, I thought I would chip in with the measure word used for sporting medals - 枚 (mei2).