Re: Help me Count to 10


The Ghost In The Machine wrote:
On Mon, 31 Jul 2006 00:49:41 +0100, Ben Rudiak-Gould wrote:



I have no idea what the Japanese analogues to any of these would be, or
whether Japanese has additional analogues that would be hard to express in
pure English. (German and French are similar to English in this respect,
though it is theoretically possible in German to construct a phrase that
might be translated into slightly idiomatic English as "the
twenty-fourth-counted-past-this-point marble". However, I for one
consider that little more than a variant.)

I'm intrigued as to what this theoretical German possibility might be.
"Die vierundzwanzigste an diesen Punkt vorbei gezaehlte Murmel" seems
a bit outlandish. Du verarschst uns, oder ?

Mandarin Chinese has lots of "measure words" that
go between a number and a noun.
(no tones indicated)

"ba" for objects with a handle
"tao" set
"zhi" one of paired body parts, animals
"ge" if you forget which measure word to use.
"bao" a packet
etc.

yizhang zhi = a piece of paper
yipan cidai = a tape

But if there is no corresponding "measure word" in
English, there is no way of translating it and no need to.
Saying "yige zhi" instead of "yizhang zhi" is not Chinese,
but I'm not sure how strange the effect on a native speaker would
be.

.

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