Zhè piān wénzhāng nèiróng bù cháng, dànshì zhòngdiǎn hěn qīngchu.

This article isn’t long, but its main points are very clear.

Breakdown of Zhè piān wénzhāng nèiróng bù cháng, dànshì zhòngdiǎn hěn qīngchu.

• 不bù: not
• 很hěn: very
• 这zhè: this
• 但是dànshì: but

Questions & Answers about Zhè piān wénzhāng nèiróng bù cháng, dànshì zhòngdiǎn hěn qīngchu.

1. What does 篇 (piān) mean in 这篇文章? Why do we need it?

In Chinese, nouns that are counted usually need a measure word (also called a classifier) between the number/demonstrative and the noun.

• 这篇文章 (zhè piān wénzhāng) = this article / this essay
• 篇 (piān) is the measure word used for pieces of writing, such as 文章 (wénzhāng, article/essay), 日记 (rìjì, diary entry), 小说 (xiǎoshuō, short story/novel), etc.

You generally cannot say 这文章 in standard written Chinese; you should say 这篇文章. (In some casual spoken contexts, people might drop the measure word, but you should learn the correct form with 篇.)

2. What is the difference between 文章 (wénzhāng) and 内容 (nèiróng)? Why do we need both?

• 文章 means article / essay / written text as a whole.
• 内容 means content, i.e., what is inside the article (the ideas, information, points).

In 这篇文章内容不长, the focus is on the content of the article, not the physical object itself. Translating very literally:

• 这篇文章内容不长 ≈ “The content of this article is not long.” You could also say 这篇文章不长, which would be understood, but 文章内容不长 is a little more explicit and natural in contexts like evaluating length and clarity.

3. Why is there no 的 (de) between 文章 and 内容? Could we say 这篇文章的内容不长 instead?