Measure words for counting

Whenever you talk about the quantity of something in Chinese, you need a measure word. The structure is:

Measure word + Number + Noun

English does actually have measure words, it's just that most nouns don't need them. In English, most nouns are count nouns - they specify one instance of something. "An apple", for example. Some nouns are mass nouns, and refer to something without specifying how much of it there is. Examples are "furniture", "people", "chocolate" etc. You can't say "a furniture". You need a measure word: "a piece of furniture", "two groups of people", "three bars of chocolate" and so on.

In Chinese, all nouns are mass nouns, so they all need measure words. Just as in English, different nouns are associated with different measure words (e.g. it wouldn't make sense to talk about "a bar of furniture", unless something went badly wrong in the factory).

Some examples:

• 一个人
• 三条狗
• 两只猫
• 一杯啤酒
• 一瓶水
• 七块巧克力
• 一盒茶