It's slightly embarrassing, but what does the abbreviation mw stand for. I do know that it's referring to one of the counting words, but why MW?

measure word

Thx ! I finally know what does MW stands for :)

ahh...thanks

That and sb. used to really get to me. When I was learning Spanish the textbooks didn't use those abbreviations even though they're really efficient.

is sb. the "somebody" of Chinese teacher usage or subject (sbj.?).

In China it seems all Chinese students and teachers think that sb., sth., adj., adv., and a whole bunch of others are in our normal vocabulary.

Which becomes funny when students ask whether a word is an "A-D-J" or an "A-D-V" but they don't know what those stand for, or when they use "sb." for somebody in an essay as if it is a normal word.

sb. is somebody, sth. is something. Just the conventions we settled on.

You know they say that more conversations happen in English between non-native speakers than native speakers. I bet sb. is a totally great word in Chinese English.

Ah, now it's time for all the ESL teachers in China to come out and weigh in...

I have not heard my students refer to parts of speech in their abbreviated forms. But the thing that gets to me is that they all pronounce adjective adJECtive. I don't know why but it drives me wild.
That and strangers love to shout out "nice to meet you!" as you ride past on your bicycle. Happens all the time. Finally i asked someone what they thought it meant and it seems that their Chinese English teachers say that it means, "I hope you are happiness" or something rather.