(dùn) - measure word for meals and tellings-off; to pause in Mandarin
dùnTraditional: 頓
Translation
measure word for meals and tellings-off; to pause
Word origin
Written with 页 (yè, head) beside the phonetic 屯 (tún). The original sense was to bow the head to the ground, from which came the ideas of stopping short and of a single bout of something.
- Origin
- Chinese
- Root
- 屯 (tún, phonetic) + 页 (yè, head)
Stroke order
顿
Examples
。
I eat three meals a day.
。
This meal is on me.
。
He got a telling-off from the boss yesterday.
。
He paused for a moment at that point.
。
We had a very good lunch up on the mountain.
顿 (dùn) counts meals. 三顿饭 is three meals, 这顿 is this meal, and 顿顿 means at every single meal. It is one of the measure words a learner meets early through food and then keeps meeting elsewhere.
Its second job is counting one continuous bout of something unpleasant that lands on a person: 骂一顿 is a telling-off, 说了他一顿 is giving someone an earful. English packages these as nouns; Mandarin leaves the verb and counts the episode.
As a verb it means to pause, the tiny stop in a sentence or a step: 顿了一下, 停顿. The trap is counting the wrong thing at the table. 顿 counts the sitting, not what is on it, so three dishes is 三个菜 and three meals is 三顿饭. Say 三顿菜 and you have invented a very long dinner.
Where this fits
Used in
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顿: worksheet, infographic and listicle
Free printable study downloads for the Mandarin word "顿" (measure word for meals and tellings-off; to pause): a worksheet with the answer key built in, an infographic, and a sentence listicle. Open any one to view, print or save.
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Start your free weekThis word is part of lesson 58.