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

[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 ;)