Laowai Chinese 老外中文

Why does Chinese have measure words?

Monday, December 18th, 2006

As I finished these measure word posts I had to ask myself (again), "Why does Chinese have all these darn measure words?" Is it like the tones, which seem to exist only to keep foreigners from learning Chinese? As I mention here, the "measure words " (liàngcí 量词) ...

Posted in Explanations | 18 Comments »

Which measure words do they really use?

Sunday, December 17th, 2006

See also: Top 10 measure words to know As a friend who recently arrived in China said, "Yes but do they really USE all of those measure words?" I don't know about all. But yes, unfortunately, they do use a great deal of them. These are all the measure words I have ...

Posted in Explanations, Listening, Vocabulary | 20 Comments »

What’s that “zi” 子 thing?

Wednesday, December 6th, 2006

You may have noticed that a whole lot of words end with a neutral toned "zi 子." What does that "zi 子" thing mean? I think it means just that: "a thing." This is only my theory, but I think because the Chinese language is a homonym minefield that has so ...

Posted in Explanations | 10 Comments »