ze3 则 an item (of news), as in 一则新闻

Random notes from my personal use and experience:

In Taiwan, people tend to use bu4 部 for vehicles.

I’ve also heard 部 being used (although I use chang3 场 more often) for movies or performances, e.g. 一部电影, 一场歌剧.

dong4 栋 for buildings, esp. with Cantonese speakers: 一栋高楼

dui4 对 for pairs, esp. for couples, 一对夫妇

dun4 顿 for meals, e.g. 一顿饭

feng1 封 for mail/letters, e.g. 一封信

fu2 幅 for art, e.g. 一幅画

fu4 副 for a set, e.g. spectacles 一副眼镜, deck of cards 一副扑克牌

In Singapore, ge4 个(個) is used for just about everything, even though everyone knows it’s not always “correct” usage.

gu3 股 for burst of smell or emotion, e.g. 一股勇气，一股花香

jia4 架 for planes, e.g. 一架飞机

jie2 节 means period; it doesn’t necessarily mean a one-hour period, as long as it’s regular and the length is known, e.g. on a school timetable.

ju2 局 for one round in a game, eg. 一局麻将

ke1 颗 is also used for round objects like pearls or fruit or stars.

A friend of mine from Kunming uses men2 门 for classes/course, while another friend of mine from Fujian uses tang2 堂.

pian1 篇 for essays/articles一篇文章

sou1 艘 for boats, e.g. 一艘船

zhan3 盏 - I only use it for lamps as in “一盏灯”.

zhi1 枝 - interchangable with 支, as far as I can tell.

Very interesting indeed. So lia3 俩 is just one of a whole family of contracted (number + ge 个) words? A few questions:
1) where exactly are you in China (if you don’t mind saying)?
2) are there hanzi characters for those?
3) do you think people in other parts of China understand all of those?

How you going?

我吃了个面包， 又喝了瓶啤酒。 看了个电影。 出门碰见个同学。
I ate a bread, drank a beer, watched a movie and ran into a classmate.

Actually the number is ‘one’. For most of the time, the number 1 before the measure word can be omitted.

And if you want to omit most of the measure words, it is not impossible. In fact in my area, measure words are not used so frequently. We use different number words.
As one is already omitted, we start from two.

TWO: lia 3
THREE: sa 1
FOUR: se 4
FIVE: N/A
SIX: liu’o 4
SEVEN: N/A
EIGHT: N/A
NINE: jiu’o 2
TEN： she 2

yí shàn mén 一扇门 = one door
liǎng shàn chuāng 两扇窗 = two windows
jǐgè huāpíng 几个花瓶 = several flower vases

The lists of measure words and their nouns are instructive, but the opposite would be even more useful. Does anyone know of a website where you can look up measure words by the noun?

Now this really had/has me fascinated as 条 (tiao) is already a measure word. So why give something that has been named using one measure word a different measure word?

Can anyone think of any other examples of this?

200匹

There are pretty frequent cases like this where a noun can be excluded because the measure word and the context makes it obvious.

(200 “horse”power in this case, I believe)

Does that mean “He built a house”? If so, I find it strange that right before the measure word there isn’t a number or a “zhe,” or “na” or “ji.” Can you explain the grammar of that sentence?