個
個 – Ge4 – (a measure word)
One of the charming features of Chinese is the measure word. If you want to say a quantity of a certain kind of thing in English, you just say
(number) (thing)
Like “one duck” or “five people” or “ten minutes”. Not so in Chinese, instead you have to say
(number) (measure word) (thing)
For example
五隻豬 – Wu3 Zhi1 Zhu1 – Five (measure for pigs and some other kinds of animals) Pigs
There are different measure words for all different categories of objects. 個 is the most common one, and is used for people, and seems to also be used when no other one fits. But there are HUNDREDS more, for all different seemingly random categories of things. Sometimes one measure word is used for multiple unrelated things. Here’s just a few to give you the flavor:
把 – Ba3 – handfuls, things with handles, and some abstract things
顆 – Ke1 – small spheres
棵 – Ke1 – trees, cabbages
口 – Kou3 – population, mouthsful, wells
挂 – Gua4 – string-shaped things, strings of things
班 – Ban1 – crowds, classes, scheduled transport vehicles
臺 – Tai2 – performances, engines
具 – Ju4 – tools, corpses
Yes, even corpses get their own measure word, for all the times you need to refer to great stacks of dead bodies. This whole business is so complicated that Jenny isn’t even 100% sure that 隻 is the right one for pigs. It probably depends on the breed or something like that.