zhè shì shénme? What's this? and Measure Words

zhè shì shénme? zhè shì yī gèrén = What's this? This is a (Measure word) person.

When we use a noun we must first put a measure word in front of it. The most common measure word is:

gè

个

You can use this measure word for almost everything and people will understand you, but sometimes there are more specific measure words for different objects e.g. yī běn shū=a book.

There are different types of measure words:

1. Sometimes they indicate the shape of an object e.g. yī tiáo hé=a river. tiáo is a measure word for long snake-shaped things

2. Sometimes measure words indicate container volumes of things e.g. yī píng shuǐ=a bottle of water.

3. There are other measure words like bunch in English that indicate a quantity of something e.g. yī duī shū=a pile of books