Newbie - How Many Family Members Do You Have?

when I started studying Chinese a few years back, I learned early on that the measure word for "family members" is 口 but I've never ever heard any one say 你家有几口人， or  我家有四口人。 I always hear 几个人。 What's the deal with that?

I was going to add,shouldn't it be 十口人[shi2kou3ren2..ten people]？I thought she had forgotten to count 我我 [wo3wo3..(me me) ] in.I thought it was a joke at first,that a newbie was counting each person twice due to the reduplification of the characters [or eg ba4ba..(father) being twice the man he ought to be...or each has a split personality].

Alternatively,this may be a representative family member.

Hi ihifhidf

"你家有几口人？" is a more "graphic" way of saying "你家有几个人？". The measure word "口" is mainly used when referring to the number of family members and residents. The "口" (a mouth) implies "the number of people you need to feed". The best example should be "人口" (population). Interestingly, you can say the number of pigs by use of "口", like 三口猪 (zhu1), which is also very graphic.

Hi ihifhidf

口kǒu is more commonly used in the northern China for the number of family members. In the south, people usually say "个".

I learned some important things in this lesson.

First, that '口' (kou3) as a measure word is used in this context restricted to family. (But note, that '人口' [ren2kou3] is a generic word for 'population', which doesn't refer to your particular family).

Second, I had always thought (incorrectly) that '姐姐' (jie3jie5) was pronounced as if the second 'jie' was third tone, so that because of tone sandhi, the combination would be second tone followed by third tone. But it is clear from this lesson that it is third tone followed by fifth (neutral) tone.

Newbies can go to the following WikiPedia link, and links connected to it, to learn more about tone sandhi:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tone_sandhi

When I hear 口, I always have the image of a big family waiting to be fed. And it was like that for a lot of people in China pre-only child policy. It was common for people to have 5 to 6 children or more. My parents came from such big families. And now we have gone to the other extreme.

i also learned that maternal grandparents is wai2 gong (grandpa) and wai2 po (grandmother) is that correct?

sure is.

baba....

Maybe your little friend can be counted as 一屁股猪 yi1pi4gu5zhu1... one butt pig... to avoid confusion. I'm sure how many pigs you have to clean up after is as important as how many pigs you have to feed!

@schiphol,

That's correct. 外公/wai4 gong1 is maternal grandpa, 外婆/wai4 po2 is maternal grandma. You most probably know this, but 爷爷/ye2 ye is paternal grandpa, 奶奶/nai3 nai is grandma.

barbs, that pig needs therapy!

orangina, in the countryside pigs share the house with the owner, they spend a lot of time indoors, in the toilet in fact, which is usually the largest room in the house. the toilet is also used as a gathering place for chatting. generally a family will raise a couple of pigs each year. then slaughter them for the spring festival celebrations. the meat is salted and smoked 辣肉 so that the family has meat for months。

Let me ask Poddies: 你家有几口人？/Ni3 jia1 you3 ji3 kou3 ren2?/How many people are there in your family?

miantiao, I just meant that in the case of barbs' pig perhaps counting bums rather than mouths would be more accurate! I understand why usually the same 口 measure word would apply to family and pigs.

三口人

thanks for the correct tones, i didn't have those written down correctly.

orangina and miantiao,I've transferred to here.

maybe it comes how many mouths of your family need eat!

huiruwang007

exactly that.

The filenames of the mp3's of this lesson don't have the "A" in the filename, any reason for this change?

old lessons: chinesepod_Axxxxpb.mp3

this lesson: chinesepod_xxxxpb.mp3

xxxx=lesson no.

Does 家(jia) imply that the people are in the same house as you, i.e family that you live with, or can you say "我家有三口人。他们住在英国。我主在香港。" (wo jia you san kou ren.  ta men zhu zai ying gou.  wo zhu zai xiang geng.)

By the way, have you done a podcast covering wider family members, aunts, uncles, grandparent, etc?  I always start forgetting after little sister, etc.

ivor

家 = family(generally immediate family either living together or separated). however it can also refer to a wider group of people as being a family.

it also refers to one's home

我们中国人是一家人。（wo3men zhong1guo2ren2 shi4yi1jia1ren2) we chinese are one family)

家 is also a measure word 那家饭店 nei4jia1fan4dian4 that hotel

thanks, Miantiao

In the dialogue "八口人？" is asked in response to "八口人".  Is this a proper question format without the interrogative "ma"?  Don't want to get too technical here on a newbie but am curious if something about the sentence eliminates the need to indicate a question.  Thx.

dadahuhu

the tone 语气 yu3qi4 of the speaker's voice in many instances replaces the need for an interrogative particle. just like saying eight people? what the?

its more of a surprise statement which requires further explanation as to how that family came to have eight people in the family, very rare nowadays but very common before the one child policy came into effect. here is a term you may find interesting:

英雄妈妈 ying1xiong2 hero ma1ma mother. introduced as propaganda during chairman mao's time in order to encourage women to have more children. china's population doubled in little under three decades, much the result of 英雄妈妈s.

Hi, answering Jenny's question a couple of days later. :)

我家有四口人。我妈妈，我爸爸，我妹妹，和我。

^__^

I think in a lot of countries people used to have big families, my mom has 7 or 8 siblings I think.

What is the word for siblings, i.e., brothers and sisters? I know brothers (older and younger) is xiōngdì and sisters is jiěmèi.

Hi carlos

你有几个兄弟姐妹？
How many brothers and sisters do you have?

Hi,

My mother had an aunt who had 22 children's.

The last born lived the longest (92 years).

Btw Newbie lesson 'How many in your family' is using 'ge'.

Jack

It's one of the first lesson i had in university :)

我家有五口人。

教讲英语的人说汉语是一件很困难也很伟大的事情。

看到了你们在努力。作为一个中国人为你们加油，好样的。

The new exercieses are 真棒! 谢谢

我家五口人， 我，太太， 大儿子，中儿子，小儿子  I'm not sure that's the right way to refer to my middle son or not.

I noticed an example of tone sandhi (which I mentioned earlier) in this lesson

'几口人' (ji3 kou3 ren2) formally has 'ji' in third tone. But if you listen to the dialog, it is in second tone. So 'ji3 kou3 ren2' is pronounced 'ji2 kou3 ren2', illustrating how when a third tone is followed by a third tone, the first of them is turned into a second tone.

Interestingly, the word before this phrase is '有' (you3), which is also third tone. So why doesn't this affect the '几' (ji3) just before it? (Listen to the dialog to hear what I'm talking about.) I'm not a native speaker, but I think that it is because '几口' are more tightly bound to each other as a phrase than they are to previous word '有'

Native speakers may have other insights.

Hi kevina

You can say,

我家有五口人， 我、太太、 大儿子、二儿子和小儿子。

Wǒ jiā yǒu wǔ kǒu rén, wǒ, tàitai, dà érzi, èr érzi hé xiǎo érzi.

一般来讲，中国人不经常说“几口人”，而是用“几个人”。

Great lesson.  And the chemistry between Ken and Jen is great too!

Ken talked about "kao" as being a measure word.  What's a measure word?

Hey jaimemayo

I am sure someone can offer a better explanation but, until they do, I hope this will do:

Measure words in Chinese are attached to nouns and help indicate how much/many there is/are of the noun in question. Even if there is just one noun (one table, one chair etc.), you would use the measure word.

So, it works out like:

quantity + measure word + noun
1 + measure word + table
yi1 + ge + zhuo1zi
(one table / a table)

"ge" is the most common measure word but there are very many of them (it can be confusing!). So, if ever in doubt, just use "ge" and it should see you through okay.

"kou" is a measure word for people in the family:

quantity + kou3 + family member/persons
liang3 + kou3 + ren2
(two family members)

You can see how the measure word, then, helps identify the noun too (ren2 means person, but with this measure word you know it's people in the family).

Connie mentioned above that ge/个 rather than kou3/口 is used a lot in the south for family members, so you can see how common it is!

To get better acquainted with measure words, I'd check out the latest Qing Wen lesson and keep an eye out for them in all Newbie lessons.

Hope that helps...?

I forgot to mention, jaimemayo, you can also say:

zhe4 ge zhuo1zi
(this table)

na4 ge zhuozi
(that table)

The measure word is included before the noun, even if the quantity is just implied.

The latest Qing Wen lessons cover measure words. Check out this one for food nouns: http://chinesepod.com/lessons/measure-words-for-food

Many thanks, suxiaoya!  Your explanation helped a lot.  I think it's kind of like the mass and count noun concept I learned when I studied French a long time ago.  

The measure word discussion you pointed out above helped a lot too!  It helped me to see how nouns are grouped together.  Thanks again :) !!

Ive just been working in china for 1 year and recently started lessons thru tutoring. I dont know if the personal tutor is all that good I seem to get bogged down on tonal pronounciation and had just started lessons  then had to go back to Australia. Being in Australia now. I think this is the best way to go to learn. I may be back shortly so will keep refreshing my listenning.

how could it be 8 families? i think she count 5 ppl in total

baba,mama,gege,jiejie,n herself

Dear　Bellefly,

Thanks for a good question.

The lesson was written this way because the focus is on talking about how many people are in your family, not on their specific titles.

If you'd like to learn the names for various relatives, please see this lesson.

bellefly,

I think from memory Ken mentioned in the podcast that she left off naming the other 3 for the sake of brevity as this is a newbie lesson.

Hello there Mary   ;-]

How'd you find me ? Long time no see since those steamy nights in Cairo. You still bringing joy to the British navy ? It's not like you to be shy; come round and deliver that massage yourself. Usual rates apply ??

21377!

把我的屁股笑使掉!

ba3wo3depi4guxiao4shi3diao4

Laughed my a** off!

gina:   She's gone.  #!%&# !

"I took my buttocks and laughed till they dropped off." - I just love literal translations  :-)

my dad has northern europian background and I often would hear comments like that. about certain amount of mouths for this or that.

"he has to keep 5 mouths fed.
I'm curious if this is also common term in danish.to speak about mouths for amount of people in your family as well.... 

great lesson guys.

I thought the person who read the English expansion sentences did a terrific job! 他的声音很好听，发音真清楚！tā de shēng yīn hěn hǎo tīng, fāyīn zhēn qīngchu! Connie and him would make a terrific team reading the expansion sentences.

So would you use 口 to describe any member of your family? For example

我有一口哥哥。
wǒyǒuyīkǒugēge.

Or would it be

我有一个哥哥。
wǒyǒuyīgègēge

Or interchangeable as per the above explanation of the north/south divide?

gege ge gege.....

:)