Parts Composed of the characters 人 person and 一 one (turned sideways).

Memory hook A collection of people.

Grammar In English we use the generic word group for almost any collection of things but sound more educated when we use the correct collection word. This is also true in Chinese. There are specific collection words in English for animals and weights and measures. In Chinese 个 is used for generic collections and like English more specific collection and measure words exist for many different object types.

[1] Ferry Sign squared 1 by userAuntie P from http://www.flickr.com/photos/auntiep/326471591/, under license: Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.0 Generic