I was reading about the “measure words” or counters used in Chinese and it seemed very complicated. Ben is the counter is you’re talking about books; ping is the counter if it’s bottles of wine being talking about. Then I remembered about English collective nouns. Here’s something a student of English might read from the American Heritage Book of English Usage:

“Some nouns, like committee, clergy, enemy, group, family, and team, refer to a group but are singular in form. These nouns are called collective nouns. In American usage, a collective noun takes a singular verb when it refers to the collection considered as a whole, as in The family was united on this question or The enemy is suing for peace. It takes a plural verb when it refers to the members of the group considered as individuals, as in My family are always fighting among themselves or The enemy were showing up in groups of three or four to turn in their weapons. In British usage, collective nouns are more often treated as plurals: The government have not announced a new policy. The team are playing in the test matches next week.”

And it gets more complicated, with a ‘murder of crows,’ a ‘company of moles,’ and a ‘troop of monkeys.’ There are tribes, barrens, rakes, spans, bevies, and more. How on earth do we manage?

The point is that we do manage our own languages surprisingly well, and we don’t know many of our own rules and conventions. The barriers to learning another language may not really be as high as we think, if we get rid of the obstructions created in our minds.