HSK 7
名量词
míng liàng cí
Nominal measure words (Míng liàngcí)
Explanation
Nominal measure words (名量词 míng liàngcí, i.e. measure words — counting-unit words like "cái, con, quyển" — that accompany nouns) are words indicating the counting unit of a noun, placed after a numeral and before the noun. Chinese has a great many measure words specialized for each type of thing, and they cannot be used interchangeably.
Numeral + 名量词 + noun (e.g. 四栋楼 sì dòng lóu = four buildings; 三粒药 sān lì yào = three pills). There are also compound measure words such as 人次 (réncì = person-times) which combine two units to count the total number of participation instances.
Use whenever counting a noun; you must choose the measure word appropriate to the object — 栋 (dòng) for tall buildings, 粒 (lì) for small round things, 盏 (zhǎn) for lamps, 人次 for the total tally of person-visits/instances of service use (statistical in nature, common in formal/written usage).
Indiscriminately using 个 (gè) for every noun instead of the specialized measure word (wrong: 四个楼 → correct: 四栋楼); or omitting the numeral before the measure word when a specific count is needed; confusing 人次 with 人 (人 counts the number of people, 人次 counts the number of visits/instances).
Examples
This residential complex has four buildings in all, and each building has twenty floors.
Yesterday the library received three thousand reader-visits.
Practice
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Learn “名量词” effectively
The grammar point “名量词” (Nominal measure words (Míng liàngcí)) is one of the key structures at HSK 7. To use it fluently, you need to understand the contexts where it's used and practice regularly.
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