Measure words in English

One of the things in Chinese that the student has to learn are measure words. They seem like a strange concept because they are required for all nouns when enumerated, even simple ones like person or car. English actually has measure words, though. They fall in two classes:

Necessary:

These nouns have to have a measure word if you want to specify a quantity. These were called non-count nouns when I went to school.

Noun	Measure Word
bread	loaf
grass	blade
cattle	head

Aggregates:

These words refer describe units of items that are otherwise count nouns. The Chinese equivalents cause no conceptual problems for the student. The only examples I can think of are for animals, where there is a different measure word for just about every type of animal.

Noun	Measure Word
geese	flock
dogs	pack
puppies	litter