Is it used only for counting? Mandarin and other East Asian language have a classifier for counting. English uses counting classifier sometimes. For example, "paper" without a classifier in English refers to an official document or essay. For example "I have to write a paper" or "Do you have your papers?" otherwise you have to use "a sheet of paper", "some paper", "a pack of paper" etc. It's not exactly the same as the counting words in Mandarin but play a similar role in grammer.