Measure words are also called classifiers.
See also Numbers.
go![]() |
個 | (the most common of all measure words) for people; for medium-sized, round objects like fruit, bowls, plates and buns; for countries and regions; for abstract nouns like questions, ideas and decisions; for many things that are not easily categorized like drawers and screw drivers |
bou![]() |
部 | for books and magazines |
bui![]() |
杯 | glass, cup |
bun![]() |
本 | for books and magazines |
döü![]() |
對 | pair, couple |
dzek![]() |
隻 | for mammals, birds and insects; for utensils; for some parts of the body like hands and legs; for boats |
dzi![]() |
支 | for slender, long and stiff objects such as pens, pencils, flowers, sticks; for songs, music; for armies, navies |
dzön![]() |
樽 | bottle |
dzœng![]() |
張 | for flat things like papers, documents, dollar bills, swords, knives, CDs and records; for furniture like tables and chairs |
fai![]() |
塊 | slice, piece, lump |
ga![]() |
架 | for cars, vehicles, planes; for devices like computers, TVs and stereos |
l![]() ![]() |
粒 | for very small things like grains of cereal, sand, cloves of garlic, diamonds, beads, stars |
po![]() |
for plants, trees and vegetables | |
s![]() ![]() |
首 | for songs |
tiu![]() |
條 | for long objects like ribbons, tapes, strings, ties, loaves of bread; for hair, feathers, bones; for keys, roads, fish and reptiles; rude or slang for people |
tsöt![]() |
齣 | for movies and plays |
w![]() ![]() |
for people in polite speech |
In English, there are some words we must count in units:
Note that it is impossible or ungrammatical to say something like "two news" or "four breads".
In Cantonese, nearly all words work this way. We must use a special counting unit before them. For example:
three people | sam![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
|
four dogs | sei![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
|
two loaves of bread | lœng![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() |
Whenever you learn new vocabulary, it is a good idea to also learn the associated measure word (MW) with it. For example:
person | 人 | y![]() ![]() ![]() |
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