I don't know why an English speaker would find this odd, because English basically has the same idea and sometimes even the same rules. For example, you would never say "three pieces of blood." You would say "three drops of blood." right? There are *grains* of sand in my shoes. I have 4 *sets* of clothing and 5 *pairs* of chopsticks and a *bundle* of sticks. 杯 (bei) literally just means "cup" and you would also never say, "hey can I have a piece of orange juice?" No, you would say "Hey, can I have a cup of orange juice for my *dose* of medicine?" Chinese has more of these than English does (for example we don't have a necessary counting word for books whereas you would want to say 兩本書 in Chinese), but it's not like the concept is totally foreign
Foreigners see it odd because in mandarin we have to put them to make the sentence sounds make sense. In english, you can say "i have 5 books" but in chinese you have to put the measure words after the numbers which brings a bit strugle to mandarin learners.
Grewt lesson! It was cool to Learn something new about a subject I already knew a lot about . Like using the measure word twice to indicate all of something.
I think Indonesian has more measures words but we don't really use them very often, We have "utas, helai, untai, buah, cumpuk, pasang, lembar, rangkai, ikat, sisir, tangkai, ruas, potong, batang, gulung, lapis, ekor, buah,, etc" so many more
Didn't realize Chinese could be this hard to understand from westerners perspective until I'm trying to follow this video acting like I don't understand Chinese at all. Everything comes so naturally when I don't think about all these little elements. 哈哈哈哈
Thanks for watching. You could search some of our Measure Words lesson videos in the channel such as 6 Must Know Measure Words in Chinese ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-uYAOMv-h79A.html; Important Measure Words for Food and Drink in Chinese ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-gzc5k4QbH6U.html; Mandarin Measure Words found in Nature ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-BR--UrRokkg.html; and a lot more. Do check them out.
Measure Words in Chinese is really a difficult grammar point! Besides. There are some small mistakes in the clip. At 0’32”, the tone of 一 here shall be 4th tone. At 0’34”, the tone of 一 here shall be 2nd tone. At 1’9”, the tone of 只shall be 1st tone. At 1’54”, the tone of 个shall be 4th tone.
actually, i think it's a bit oversimplified to conclude that "多少" is used to ask a big number (over 10). For example, you can also use "你养了多少只猫" and also "你养了几只猫"？i would say, "多少"is more flexible than "几", because it can also be used to ask small numbers. what do you think?
Great video. Thanks. One suggestion, and I know it's extra work, but do you think you can add the 繁體漢字 to the subtitles you provide as well? I saw them in some older videos on this channel, and they are really helpful since I'm learning traditional script. Just a thought.
Hey there, if you watch these on our website you have the option to switch between simplified and traditional characters! It's quite a useful feature. Thanks for watching.
When I started learning Chinese I had this idea that it was more efficient than other languages. As I'm going on, now it seems it's as screwed up as other languages. :P
@@ChinesePodTV ha ha! Did I type that out loud??? Well, we know English is a mess with its messed up pronunciation. Then Spanish is a mess with the gender stuff, Subjunctive tenses, and being spoken differently in each country. Then Chinese has different words now for measurements. What new strange thing will be next that I run into? ha ha! And thank you for your reply and allowing me to whine!
Hi, great lesson! I found at the time 7"57 “一條狗” better to switch to "一条狗“ since your written Chinese is Simplified Chinese. Also at the time 8:56 “棵” should switch to “颗”
Hi Chinesepod, Is there any handout or flashcard that I can download from Chinesepod site? So that I can print it out, read and recap the measurement everyday. Thank you!
It depends what you are asking about. 多少 is most commonly used to ask about money/ prices. For example, 多少钱？How much is it? 多少 is also used for countable things when the quantity is probably over 10. For example, 你们班有多少个学生？How many students in your class? 多大 is usually used to ask about how big something is or about age. For example, 你多大了？How old are you? You can also use 多大 to ask about clothing sizes －你穿多大？what size do you wear？
Why is it that sometimes the pinyin is separated and sometimes joint together? Same case scenario, in 7:44 it’s Yì zhī zhū, but in 7:46 it’s Yìtóu zhū. The only difference is the measure word zhī and tóu. Yes for some word groups its pinyin could be joint but I don’t think this is the situation. Also, regarding the character 一, I looked up my Chinese dictionary for it and there was only the first tone yī. Then I asked a Chinese teacher, and she told me that the word一 have two ways of pronunciation: before a character with the fourth tone, we should use the second tone yí, such as 一个(yí gè); other than that, it’s all pronounced the first tone yī.
I notice the measure word 个 'ge' is used quite often for many things, can i used 个 'ge' to substitute the other measure words? Like for example when I say a cup of water, can I say 一个水杯？
Hello, Rebecca. If you want to read something written by me you can visit this site chineselanguage.altervista.org/ I appreciate your work :) Your videos are always beautiful.
Everybody, if you cannot distinguish those measure words, 个 （ge） is omnipotent. In the daily speech of the Chinese public, we do not distinguish these in the form of linguistic academics.
