Volume & Capacity

The volume or capacity of an object could refer to its size, i.e. how much space it occupies:

体积

tǐ jī

, or it could refer to how much a hollow object could contain, either something that typically contains solid objects, like a room or a car:

容积

róng jī

, or something that usually contains liquids, like a bottle or a cup:

容量	róng liàng

.
These are the units of the Chinese traditional system for measuring capacity, which are now standardized to the metric system: Since the traditional Chinese units are standardized to the metric system you can use them to refer to metric volumes, but you may also see the prefix

公

gōng

used to emphasize they are equivalent to metric units: You can also use the metric prefixes with

升

shēng

:

To express volumes in cubic terms, use

立方

lì fāng

, either with metric or Imperial units: To refer to the Imperial units of volume there are several loanwords, based on characters that have sounds that are similar to their English equivalents:

Examples

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