{"id":2129,"date":"2009-04-16T20:16:37","date_gmt":"2009-04-16T12:16:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/?p=2129"},"modified":"2015-12-15T15:48:22","modified_gmt":"2015-12-15T07:48:22","slug":"measure-words","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2009\/measure-words\/","title":{"rendered":"measure words"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/readings\/pronun-and-orth.gif\" alt=\"cover of Chinese Romanization: Pronunciation and Orthography\" style=\"float: right; width: 138px; height: 200px;\" \/>Today&#8217;s selection from the <a href=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/category\/writing-systems\/pinyin-rules\/\">rules on how to write Pinyin<\/a> deals with <a href=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/readings\/yin_binyong\/o04_chinese_measure_words.pdf\">measure words<\/a> (800 KB PDF). <\/p>\n<p>Measure words are a pet peeve of many beginning Mandarin students. (&#8220;But teacher, why can&#8217;t we just use <em>ge<\/em> for everything?&#8221;) Many more advanced students, however, get a sort of perverse pleasure out of memorizing them. If you fall into the latter group, be sure to go through the PDF linked to above, as it supplies more than 100 measure words, along with sample usages. <\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, although measure words themselves can be a real pain for non-native speakers to memorize, the rules for <em>writing<\/em> them are simple: in almost all cases they&#8217;re separate. <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299; b&#275;i ch&#225;<\/span> (a cup of tea)<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299; b&#283;n sh&#363;<\/span> (a book)<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299; ji&#257;n f&#225;ngzi<\/span> (a house)<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299; ku&#224;i qi&#225;n<\/span> (one yuan \/ one NT dollar)<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299; li&#224;ng z&#236;x&#237;ngch&#275;<\/span> (a bicycle)<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299; pi&#224;n mi&#224;nb&#257;o<\/span> (a slice of bread)<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299; p&#237;ng ji&#468;<\/span> (a bottle of wine)<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299; t&#243;u shu&#464;ni&#250;<\/span> (a water buffalo)<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299; zh&#257;ng zh&#464;<\/span> (a sheet of paper)<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299; zh&#299; g&#257;nb&#464;<\/span> (a fountain pen)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I have some friends who are good at Pinyin who say that <em>yi ge<\/em> (but not <em>liang ge<\/em>, <em>san ge<\/em>, etc.) is an exception, that it should be written solid: <em>yige<\/em>. But I have yet to see this stated in the rules; and from what I&#8217;ve seen Yin Binyong writes them separate just like everything else. Of course, it&#8217;s possible I&#8217;ve overlooked something. <\/p>\n<p>Slightly trickier are <strong>indefinite measure words<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>There are only two indefinite measure words in Putonghua: <span class=\"py\">xi&#275;<\/span> &#20123; (some; a few) and <span class=\"py\">di&#462;nr<\/span> &#28857;&#20799; [or just plain ol&#8217; <span class=\"py\">di&#462;n<\/span> &#28857;] (a little, a bit).<\/p>\n<p><strong><span class=\"py\">xi&#275;<\/span> &#20123;<\/strong> indicates a fairly large number or amount. It can follow the numeral <span class=\"py\">y&#299;<\/span> &#19968; (one), a demonstrative pronoun <span class=\"py\">zh&#232;<\/span> &#36889; (this) or <span class=\"py\">n&#224;<\/span> &#37027; (that), or certain other modifiers. It is written as one unit with the component it follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299;xi&#275;<\/span> &#19968;&#20123; (some);<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">zh&#232;xi&#275;<\/span> &#36889;&#20123; (these);<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">n&#224;xi&#275;<\/span> &#37027;&#20123; (those);<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">h&#462;oxi&#275;<\/span> &#22909;&#20123; (a lot of).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><span class=\"py\">di&#462;nr<\/span> &#28857;&#20799;<\/strong> indicates a small number or amount. It can follow the numeral <span class=\"py\">y&#299;<\/span> &#19968; (one), a demonstrative pronoun <span class=\"py\">zh&#232;<\/span> &#36889; (this) or <span class=\"py\">n&#224;<\/span> &#37027; (that), or certain other modifiers. It is written as one unit with the component it follows:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"py\">y&#299;di&#462;nr<\/span> &#19968;&#40670;&#20818;  (a bit, a little);<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">zh&#232;di&#462;nr<\/span> &#36889;&#40670;&#20818; (this bit, these few);<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">n&#224;di&#462;nr<\/span> &#37027;&#40670;&#20818; (that bit, those few).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>When <span class=\"py\">xi&#275;<\/span> or <span class=\"py\">di&#462;nr<\/span> are preceded by a verb, however, they are written separately from it:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span class=\"py\">ch&#299; xi&#275; d&#333;ngxi<\/span> &#21507;&#20123;&#26481;&#35199; (eat something);<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">xi&#283; xi&#275; w&#233;nzh&#257;ng<\/span> &#23531;&#20123;&#25991;&#31456; (do some writing);<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">ch&#299; di&#462;nr d&#333;ngxi<\/span> &#21507;&#40670;&#20818;&#26481;&#35199; (eat a little something);<\/li>\n<li><span class=\"py\">xi&#283; di&#462;nr w&#233;nzh&#257;ng<\/span> &#23531;&#40670;&#20818;&#25991;&#31456; (do a little writing).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today&#8217;s selection from the rules on how to write Pinyin deals with measure words (800 KB PDF). Measure words are a pet peeve of many beginning Mandarin students. (&#8220;But teacher, why can&#8217;t we just use ge for everything?&#8221;) Many more &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/2009\/measure-words\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,106,95,32,20,600,19],"tags":[317,622,621,620],"class_list":["post-2129","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-chinese","category-hanyu","category-linguistics","category-mandarin","category-pinyin","category-pinyin-rules","category-romanization","tag-chinese-grammar","tag-chinese-measure-words","tag-mandarin-grammar","tag-measure-words"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2129"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7009,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2129\/revisions\/7009"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2129"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2129"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pinyin.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2129"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}