升(shēng) - litre in Mandarin

升 (shēng) is the measure word for litres, used for liquids and for the volume of engines and containers alike: 一升水 (yī shēng shuǐ), "one litre of water", or 两升机油 (liǎng shēng jīyóu), "two litres of engine oil". It sits directly after the number, the same pattern every Mandarin measure word follows.

升 (shēng) is a genuinely metric unit with no older imperial rival the way 斤 (jīn) and 公斤 (gōng jīn) compete for weight, so petrol pumps, drink bottles and recipes all use 升 (shēng) without a Taiwan/mainland split. Smaller amounts use 毫升 (háoshēng, "millilitre"), a thousandth of a 升 (shēng), the unit printed on most drink cans and medicine bottles.

Don't confuse the character 升 (shēng, "litre; to rise") with 声 (shēng, "sound, voice"): same pinyin and tone, unrelated meanings, distinguished only by context and the radical on the left.