What's the measure word of 腰 (yāo, waist)?

@Changye

That is a very thoughtful post on transliterations - I am grateful.  You have given full consideration to one reason that I suspected but not fully understood - namely that it makes it easier (hardly easy) to detect a foreign name or proper noun when reading. I know myself when reading when I am completely flummoxed I have learnt to ask myself 'is this a name?'  Even a Chinese name of course.  (That's after I ask 'is this a measure word I have never seen before?'  :-)  This still raises a question: if this is for the benefit of Chinese readers - take for example thousands of geographical names - would it not be just as easy for them to recognise these names in their respective native languages?  The answer is probably yes, but then if they wanted to articulate (say) them, they would find it difficult because they have fewer sounds to choose from.  Great work as usual, Changye, thanks.     

Hi bodawei

Here are some reasons I can think of that Chinese transliterations of foreign words sound strange to foreign people.

(1) There are only about 400 kinds of syllables in modern Chinese, but "tons of (or innumerable) syllables" in English. In short, Chinese doesn't have enough "sounds" to transliterate English names

(2) There are consecutive consonants and stop consonants in English, just like "strike" and "kick", but not in modern Mandarin. In Chinese, every consonant needs to be followed by a vowel.

(3) Chinese characters have tones, but English is not a tone language. Only using first-tone characters for transliteration is not so attractive (and practical) for Chinese people, perhaps.

(4) Chinese transliterations are sometimes "intentionally" made to sound strange so that people can easily tell foreign names from Chinese words. 

For example, the name "John" is transliterated as "约翰" (yue1han4 = Johan) in Chinese, but not as "重" (zhong4) or "种" (zhong4), which have sounds that are more similar to "John", because it's not so easy to find that "重" (heavy) is a foreign name when you are reading Chinese.

The same holds true for "林恩" (lin2 en1, Lynn) and 安妮 (an1ni2, Anne), for instance. Chinese people avoid producing "one-character" transliteration words as much as possible.

PS. Some linguists insist that old Chinese had consecutive consonants, like those in some modern Chinese dialect. And both old and middle Chinese had stop consonants (entering tones, 入声). Some southern dialects still preserve 入声.

Thanks Tal for paronomasia, another word I had never encountered before.
Here's wishing you an autumn of days filled with punshine.
May your son take after you and begin spewing forth cute little baby puns soon!

@changye

不用谢。 I just realised that my post was potentially offensive to your cute little companion.  The English word 'mongrel' is a slightly derogatory term used both for 'dog', and more generally (as used here.) The meaning is 'not pure breeding.'  Here it means that English is a hodge-podge of many different languages (a mixed-breed) and accommodates many different dialects and accents.   

Of course mongrels are often said to be more resistant to disease and have more easy-going personalities than 'pure' breeds, so it not all bad.    

:-) 

Hi bodawei

Thanks for the nice info. No wonder I can't speak English fluently!

@changye

One smarty on the Internet has suggested an answer of 170,510 monosyllables in English, that is, words of one syllable.  If you relax the constraint and include (presumably 'new') syllables in words of more than one syllable the total is higher.  

A wiser person commented that the answer is indeterminate - because English is such a mongrel language.  

Hi guys

I'm very happy that my "oyaji-gag (or da-ja-re)" seems to be much "better" received here than I expected. Linguistically speaking, you can very easily make a pun using homonyms in Japanese, since there are only about 100 kinds of syllables in this language, and this produces tons of homonyms. The same is true for modern Mandarin, which has only about 400 syllables, not considering tones.

Does anyone know how many syllables English has?

Hope you're right sis! Anyway, what I say is:
a day without paronomasia is a day without punshine!

Simon I think females also are affected, maybe to a lesser degree. I've had symptoms, though I've not yet reached 45.

For the record, I consider middle age to be from 35 to 65.
It's actually quite long.

@zhenlijiang - 哈哈！*puts on air of mystery*  (but maybe not by much!)

@simon - how would you know dude?! j/k! Anyway I can assure you, with me it's been a lifelong condition! ；）

不过，姜还是老的辣。

Well, it's called "gubbhumor" in Swedish, which means "old guy humor" or maybe "gramps humor", for a more colloquial translation.

Something evidently goes horribly wrong in the male brain at the age of 45 or so.

He's bolder and colder because he's older than you, bro.    (-。-)y-゜゜゜

fyi we call these oyaji gyagu *old-guy gags (sorry!).
Are these symptoms only exhibited by Japanese, or is this a universal 中年 condition?

长夜，you boldly went where I dared not!

Oh, god ...

Hi simon

Please don't "waist" any more of your precious time on this issue. Sorry for the cold joke....

Thanks. Weird as this thread may seem, I think it's given me some insight into how measure words work.

@simonpettersson: in this case, you can say "两个腰", but we seldom (even never say that), "Everyone has a waist", 每个人都有腰！！

我从来没有数过“腰”……

你的提问引起了我的思考……

helenshen:

Thanks, but what if you want to say "That mutant has two waists!"? Or "Everyone has a waist"? Maybe you'd just use "有两腰" and "有腰"?

Hey, there is no measure word for "腰”, eg:

我的腰受伤了！

一百个人里面有四十个人的腰有问题。

妈妈的腰扭了。

FWIW, I do think the idea of "yī zhī fāpiào" when you write down the entire noun is a good idea.  Anything that keeps that noun/word from floating off into space is a good idea.

I'm depending on writing out the sentences to do something similar, but my tactic has been to focus on the sentence rather than the noun (and corresponding measure word).  Admittedly, i'm really weak on measure words, and my approach isn't going to strengthen my measure word knowledge.

Let me know what the measure word for Universe is. As in "the universe is around 13.7 billion years old". Its probably like French, where some people have to have meetings to decide if the Euro is going to be a boy or a girl.  I understand it's a boy (Le Euro). 

I guess I'll have to use "个", then. Nobody seems to know (not even the dictionaries).

Hi miantaio

一个人只有一个嘴，但是汉语有“一张嘴”这个说法。

呵呵，关于 ‘腰’应该用的量词，好像因为一个人就一个腰，所以我猜没有特用的量词。

Incidentally, does your Chinese dictionary show you measure words for nouns? If not, please get a better dictionary.

Some measure words, such as 一口猪 and 一条蛇, are very graphic, and using measure words properly can make your Chinese sound "vivid" (生动) and "real" (地道). In this sense, always using "个", the most versatile measure word, is not so recommendable, although easier said than done even for native guys.

I happen to have a small measure words dictionary published in the PRC, and it contains only 600measure words . Unfortunately enough, the dictionary doesn't tell you what measure word should be used for 腰, and fortunately enough, probably I won't need it for the rest of my life, hehe.

Good luck!

bodawei,

No, I'm up to five measure words, not five nouns. Here's the thing about prioritizing: That means I learn the word now, in isolation, and then a year down the line try to associate it with a measure word (or two or three). I'd just rather learn the whole chunk now. I no longer want to learn nouns in isolation; I want to learn them all coupled with at least one measure word.

Maybe I'm sticking too strictly to my method, but I'll just suffer the consequences. :) What I'm trying to learn is the noun and the measure word is just tacked on there as a freebie, so to speak.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestion on the culture dictionary. Sounds interesting. I've already ordered the measure word dict, though, and I'm on a tight budget, so I won't be getting one soon, I think.

@simonpettersson

If you are up to five nouns and their measure words, and you are searching for the MW for 'waist', and you are interested in fluency, maybe you should prioritise? You can always rely on the default 个; native Chinese speakers use it a lot.  Many MWs are esoteric or used rarely.    

Another thought - rather than a MW dictionary - or in addition - you might consider a 'culture' dictionary.  These function rather like an encyclopaedia, with nouns (and often their MWs) grouped in subject areas.  

No, I don't know the MW for waist (unless it is 个); I would use 个 and be understood.  

Good luck, mate. 

So far? Something like five. I've been doing this for two days.

Did you see my discussion on how to learn them? I add them to the vocabulary with included measure words, so every time I get a noun into the vocab, I make it like "一纸发票 / yi1 zhi1 fa1piao4 / an invoice" instead of just "发票 / fa1piao4 / invoice".

I'll have to wait a while before I can gauge the merits of the system, but it does work for French and learning the gender of nouns.

interesting idea.  i'm curious to know how many measure words you've gotten up to so far, and if it's helped you "get into the Chinese way of thinking" as you hoped.

I actually saw the title of your post and thought "why do you need to count waists"...?