chinese counters

cotroxell
 March 12, 2008, 03:08 PM posted in General Discussion

I was looking up the word for "high school" on the nciku dictionary (which is very useful if you haven't seen it), and came across this sentence. 这是我们这里最好的一所高中。  It's one of the best high schools here. 

 I don't exactly understand how this sentence is constructed.  I think that 这里 is the counter for referring to a place (at least according to this dictionary), and i'm assuming that 一所 is the counter for gaozhong.  But if that's right, then why are there two counters for one word?  Why wouldn't it be 这所?And if that's not right, then what's going on here?    If you can't tell, I'm ridiculously  confused.   Someone with grammatical understanding superior to mine, please help!

 

 

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goulnik
 March 12, 2008, 04:43 PM

by counter you mean 量词 (liàngcí) measure word I guess. Yes, 所 (suǒ) is a measure word for 高中 / high school. 这是我们这里最好的一所高中。 You have to read backwards : 一所高中 one high school 最好的 best 我们这里 us here <==> our 这是 this is => This is our best high school (around here). 这里 is not a measure word, but what confuses me in the translation is 'one of' which I would have said is ...之一, i.e. 这是我们这里最好的高中之一。 I guess 一所 is here for emphasis.