第一百八十八天

[nnozomi]

语法
几 + measure word + noun in quantity questions (top of page)
https://resources.allsetlearning.com/chinese/grammar/Measure_words_in_quantity_questions

词汇
零, zero (pinyin in tags)
Also written 〇 but that's no fun.
https://mandarinbean.com/new-hsk-1-word-list/

Guardian:
龙城的冬天都零下好几度了, winters in Dragon City are freezing
为了你这句话我练了几天几夜, how many days and nights did I practice because of what you said

Me:
在你的花园里有几朵花？
今年是二零二二年。

grayswandir linked the Wikipedia (mostly) comprehensive list of measure words, which is fun to browse through. I'm especially taken by 颗 for small objects (一颗珠子, a pearl) and objects appearing small (一颗星星, a star). How do you count stars up close?

Comments

[grayswandir]

I'm especially taken by 颗 for small objects (一颗珠子, a pearl) and objects appearing small (一颗星星, a star).

I get confused about 颗 because almost the only place I ever hear it is in song lyrics where it's usually 一顆心, even though hearts are... not really that small? Cantonese has a different measure word for "small round things," and counts hearts with 个, so I just think of 颗 as the special literary way to count hearts. XD

How do you count stars up close?

I just went to look into this, and apparently a star in the scientific/astronomical sense is 恆星, which... also takes 颗 as its classifier!

There's also 星球, which refers to celestial objects in general (but seems to mostly be used for planets?), and Google results are suggesting that this takes 颗 as well.

(ETA: Oh, actually, looking at the Wikipedia list, it looks like the word I know for small things in Cantonese is also used for small things in Mandarin -- it's 粒, which Wikipedia says is for "grains" of things like rice. Cantonese uses this for pearls and stars, too, but looking at some examples, it seems like in Mandarin it's for actual grains.)

[presumenothing]

Tangential, but since I finally got around to looking it up after ages of wondering – you get 恆星 for stars as opposed to 行星 for planets because only the latter moves (as seen with the regular ol' eyeball, at least).

Even more tangential: Zhou Shen's second concert tour being titled "C-929星球", because he's canonically from another planet :P

[trobadora]

you get 恆星 for stars as opposed to 行星 for planets because only the latter move

So cool! We have almost the same terms in German ("Fixstern" vs. "Wandelstern"), though Wandelstern is pretty antiquated now. English has "fixed star" at least. And "planet" comes from the Greek for "wandering star".

[nnozomi]

We have almost the same terms in German ("Fixstern" vs. "Wandelstern"), though Wandelstern is pretty antiquated now.
Oh, neat! "Wandelstern" sounds lovely.

[grayswandir]

I've seen planets referred to as "wandering stars," "errant stars," and "erring stars" in English, though admittedly only in texts like 400+ years old. (Including a play by Marlowe, for whom I happen to have a rather fitting icon!)

[trobadora]

Oh, good point! Now that you mention it, yeah, I've come across that as well. "Errant stars" is really nice!

[nnozomi]

行星 is new to me, thank you! I should look up all the planet names and find out if they're the same as Japanese.
Zhou Shen's second concert tour being titled "C-929星球", because he's canonically from another planet :P
Works for me. I hope he doesn't get too homesick ;) imagine having to commute to another planet for 过年？

[presumenothing]

I should look up all the planet names and find out if they're the same as Japanese.

I've never looked up the full list, but from the JP ones I've seen it's the same

And until further notice I am choosing to picture his commute back home as "nyan cat but more difficult" XD

[nnozomi]

And until further notice I am choosing to picture his commute back home as "nyan cat but more difficult" XD
Powered by the force of high notes, clearly.

[grayswandir]

Oh, hah. I saw 行星 when I was looking up star stuff, but just took it for a variant transcription of 恆星 because 恆 and 行 sound the same in Cantonese. XD Not in Mandarin, I see! Well, at least now I know. And the "fixed star"/"wandering star" distinction makes sense (and also didn't occur to me, since I only really know 恆 from 永恆, so I think of it as permanence in time, and hadn't realized it also meant "fixed" in space).

Zhou Shen's second concert tour being titled "C-929星球", because he's canonically from another planet :P

Hah, I love it. Complete with 929 and all. :D

[presumenothing]

because 恆 and 行 sound the same in Cantonese

Oh wow I hadn't even noticed, that sounds like potential for confusion XD and tbh yeah, basically every other use of 恒 that I can think of feels more towards time permanence rather than space (including 恒河 for the Ganges, which is another one I've always wondered about)

[nnozomi]

颗 as the special literary way to count hearts. XD
I like it ;) The list says 心 rather than 心脏, so maybe biological hearts are counted differently? (Also the "kernel" translation makes me think of the Young Wizards books, did you ever read those? I wonder if there's a Chinese version.)

and thanks for looking up 恒星 and 星球！ I guess celestial objects are always small no matter how you study them.

(I know 粒 from Japanese, where it's used like Mandarin to mean actual grains, but can occasionally be used poetically for things like pearls...)

[grayswandir]

The list says 心 rather than 心脏, so maybe biological hearts are counted differently?

*checks* Hmm. MDBG says 心脏 can be counted with either 顆 or 个...

(I haven't read the Young Wizards books, but based on your comment I'm wondering if what you're referencing is something about "heart" as, like, "core" / "kernel" / "inmost center"? Because that would make sense!)

[nnozomi]

MDBG says 心脏 can be counted with either 顆 or 个...
Thank you for checking! In fairness, I suppose you usually only get one at a time.

I'm wondering if what you're referencing is something about "heart" as, like, "core" / "kernel" / "inmost center"? Because that would make sense!
Yes! In the books everything has a heart of sorts called a "kernel" which can be used to affect the whole, sounds a lot like 颗 words would apply ;)

[scytale]

Also written 〇 but that's no fun.

But so much easier to copy out repeatedly for practice! :D

The Wikipedia list of measure words is so fun to browse, omg. :D I really like 颗 for hearts, as well, and the counter for bamboo and things that look like bamboo!

[nnozomi]

But so much easier to copy out repeatedly for practice! :D
You have a point! *looks guiltily at the handwriting practice I tend to just not do ever*

I really like 颗 for hearts, as well, and the counter for bamboo and things that look like bamboo!
Oh wow, yes. It's like, what do they call it, a big found poem.

[presumenothing]

Literally unrelated, but I was suddenly reminded of how we sometime refer to getting 0 (as a score on a test) as 零鸡蛋 XD "failed the test, you egg!! (derogatory)"

[trobadora]

二零二零 was the first year I paid attention to New Year's events and learned about how to say the year in Chinese. *g*

[nnozomi]

二零二零 was the first year I paid attention to New Year's events and learned about how to say the year in Chinese.
Me too ;) It's so memorable! (Weirdly different from Japanese also, which says "two thousand twenty" or whatever instead of "two oh two oh.")

[trobadora]

Weirdly different from Japanese also, which says "two thousand twenty" or whatever instead of "two oh two oh."

Oh, fascinating! In German you can say "Zweitausendzwanzig" (two thousand twenty) but colloquially you'd always say "Zwanzig-Zwanzig" (twenty-twenty).

[presumenothing]

Oh that's a fun difference! You can do just the last two digits for Chinese if it's already clear which century it is (which it usually is, to be fair) like 92年, 00年 etc in talking about birth years, but the digit-by-digit "format" never changes.

[trobadora]

You can do just the last two digits for Chinese if it's already clear which century it is (which it usually is, to be fair)

Yes, same here! Though it's been a bit less common since the turn of the century, maybe because we're still used to the two-digit forms of the current years standing for 19-something? Idk.

but the digit-by-digit "format" never change

That's fascinating! Yep, very fun difference - here the two-digit form is always read as a number.

[grayswandir]

Same here as well! And I do always remember how to say 二零二零年, but I still have trouble remembering that it's the same for other years, like that 1980 ends in 八零 and not 八十.

[nnozomi]

Numbering the posts here has been very instructive for me, although I still forget sometimes ;)