Chinese Classifier - Usage

Usage

In Chinese, a numeral cannot quantify a noun by itself; instead, the language relies on classifiers, commonly referred to as measure words. When a noun is preceded by a number, a demonstrative such as this or that, or a quantifier such as every, a classifier must appear directly before the noun. Thus, while English speakers say "one person" or "this person", Chinese speakers say respectively 一个人 (yí ge rén, one-CL person) or 这个人 (zhè ge rén, this-CL person). If a noun is preceded by both a demonstrative and a number, the demonstrative comes first. (This is just as in English, e.g. "these three cats".) If an adjective modifies the noun, it comes after the classifier and before the noun. The general structure of a classifier phrase is

The tables below give examples of common types of classifier phrases. While most English nouns do not need classifiers (special, rare phrases like "five head of cattle" do, but most ordinary phrases such as "three cats" do not), all Chinese nouns do; thus, in the first table, phrases that have no classifier in English have one in Chinese.

On the other hand, when a noun is not counted or introduced with a demonstrative, a classifier is not necessary: for example, there is a classifier in 三辆车 (sān liàng chē, three-CL car, "three cars") but not in 我的车 (wǒ-de chē, me-possessive car, "my car"). Furthermore, numbers and demonstratives are often not required in Chinese, so speakers may choose not to use one—and thus not to use a classifier. For example, to say "Zhangsan turned into a tree", both 张三变成了一棵树 (Zhāngsān biànchéng -le yì kē shù, Zhangsan become PAST one CL tree) and 张三变成了树 (Zhāngsān biànchéng -le shù, Zhangsan become PAST tree) are acceptable.