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.)

[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!

[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*