What is Measure Word
A group of birds, a herd of cows. Similar to English, Chinese also uses measure words. However, Chinese uses them much more frequently than English. In English, you can say “There is a flock of birds” or “There are five birds.” In Chinese, we always need to use the specific measure word, no matter how many there are.
Measure words are a major challenge for many Chinese language learners. There are over two hundred different measure words in Chinese. Many nouns are linked with their own special measure word, which usually relates to the meaning of the given noun.
In Chinese, you always need to put a measure word between a number and a noun, or a demonstrative pronoun and a noun. Every noun, even single and countable nouns, requires a measure word in Chinese.
一杯水 yì bēi shuǐ a cup of water
五只狗 wǔ zhī gǒu five dogs
这本书 zhè běn shū this book
那辆车 nà liàng chē that car
However, measure words are not required when the noun is used generically to refer to something without regard to a specific quantity.
书很好 shū hěnhǎo book(s) is/are good
我有笔 wǒ yǒu bǐ I have pen(s)
Time Nouns with Measure Words
With time nouns, measure words can sometimes be omitted. As you may or may not know, the Chinese have a fondness for even numbers, except for “4” as it sounds like the word for “dead” in Chinese. In speech, we also prefer even-numbered syllables. Therefore, if a time noun is a one-syllable word, we tend to drop the measure word. Even if the number of time units is greater than ten, and the time noun becomes more than one syllable, we still follow the rule of using a number less than ten. For example:
| Number | MW | one syllable word | |
| 一 yì | X | 天 tiān | 1 day |
| 一 yì | X | 年 nián | 1 year |
| 一 yì | X | 周 zhōu | 1 week |
| 十一 shíyī | X | 天 tiān | 11 days |
| 三十 sānshí | X | 年 nián | 30 year |
However, when the time noun is a two-syllable word, we tend to keep the measure word to make it an even-numbered syllable word.
| Number | MW | two syllables word | |
| 一 yí | (个 ge) | 星期 xīngqī | 1 week |
| 一 yí | 个 ge | 礼拜 lǐbài | 1 week |
| 一 yí | 个 ge | 钟头 zhōngtou | 1 hour |
| 一 yí | 个 ge | 早上 zǎoshang | 1 moring |
| 一 yí | (个 ge) | 小时 xiǎoshí | 1 hour |
| 三十 sānshí | 个 ge | 钟头 zhōngtou | 30 hours |
Note: Month” in Chinese with measure word or without measure word has different meanings. For example, 二月 èryuè means “February,” but liǎng ge yuè means “two months.
- Measure words part 1 (ge, wèi, běn, bēi, zhī, píng, guàn, kuài）
- Measure words part 2 (fèn, zhāng, liàng, jiàn, zhī, tiáo, shuāng, zhǒng）
