When I taught English in China, one of the easiest lectures was on English articles, i.e. the, a and an. However, when discussing the use of “this” \u8fd9 and “that” \u90a3\uff0c some problems would arise. Some students would say things like: “this the ball is red” or “that a school is where I study”. At first, it was a bit confusing, and I tried to explain that there is no need for an article when using “this” or “that”, but some students still weren’t grasping it. The problem, was a fundamental difference between English and Chinese, namely, the use of measure words or \u91cf\u8bcd (li\u00e0ng c\u00ed).<\/p>\n
Measure words are chinese “classifiers” that relate to an object or noun. Yet unlike English, where the classifiers (some people call them modifiers) are quite simple: a, an, the, the Chinese language takes a very specific and lengthy approach to modifying nouns. For foreigners learning the language, it’s one of the least enjoyable parts of Chinese, requiring rote memorization above all else. That being said, many of the measure words relate to the type of noun or object in question, harking on physical attributes or lump-categories.<\/p>\n
The most basic measure word, \u4e2a (g\u00e8) is used when dealing with people or individual things. For example: \u4e24\u4e2a\u4eba\uff08two people). Yet for other objects and nouns, distinctions are made within the Chinese language, that classifies them based on appearance or groupings. For example books generally take the classifier \u672c (b\u011bn) as it is associated with works of literature. Flat objects take (zh\u0101ng) such is the case with tables. Animals take \u53ea \u00a0(zh\u012b) (although it depends on whether or not they are domesticated), while machines and mechanical things use the form \u53f0 (t\u00e1i). For landmarks, large buildings and mountains we use \u5ea7 (zu\u00f2). However, there are always exceptions to the rule as \u6761 (ti\u00e1o) can be used for long and flexible things, one-dimensional things, or abstract items like news reports…confusing yet?<\/p>\n