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
