page_title: Chinese classifier
section_title: Specialized uses
hierarchical_section_title: Chinese classifier / Usage / Specialized uses
caption_attribution_description: English: Traffic Jam in DelhiFrançais&#160;: Un embouteillage à Delhi
context_page_description: The modern Chinese varieties make frequent use of what are called classifiers or measure words. One use of classifiers is when a noun is qualified by a numeral known as a noun phrase. When a phrase such as "one person" or "three books" is translated into Chinese, it is normally necessary to insert an appropriate classifier between the numeral and the noun. For example, in Standard Mandarin, the first of these phrases would be 一个人 yí gè rén, where yī means "one", rén means "person", and gè is the required classifier. There are also other grammatical contexts in which classifiers are used, including after the demonstratives 这 zhè and 那 nà; however, when a noun stands alone without any such qualifier, no classifier is needed. There are also various other uses of classifiers: for example, when placed after a noun rather than before it, or when repeated, a classifier signifies a plural or indefinite quantity.
  The terms "classifier" and "measure word" are frequently used interchangeably.
context_section_description: In addition to their uses with numbers and demonstratives, classifiers have some other functions. A classifier placed after a noun expresses a plural or indefinite quantity of it. For example, 书本 (shū-běn, book-CL) means "the books" (e.g. on a shelf, or in a library), whereas the standard pre-nominal construction 一本书 (yī běn shū, one-CL book) means "one book".
  Many classifiers may be reduplicated to mean "every". For example, 个个人 (gè-ge rén, CL-CL person) signifies "every person".
  Finally, a classifier used along with 一 (yī, "one") and after a noun conveys a meaning close to "all of" or "the entire" or "a ___full of". The sentence 天空一片云 (tiānkōng yī piàn yún, sky one-CL cloud), meaning "the sky was full of clouds", uses the classifier 片 (piàn, slice), which refers to the sky, not the clouds.
caption: The phrase 车辆 (chē-liàng, car-CL) has the classifier after the noun. It could refer, for example, to "the cars on the road".
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