I was surprised when my textbook introduced the measure word for 香蕉. It says 个 is the correct one. A good friend from Shanghai said 根 is the only correct one and I used that when shopping for bananas. If I had to guess freely, I thought 条 should be correct. Google says:

"一只香蕉" 594,000 (edit: thanks to xiaocai)
"一根香蕉" 195,000
"一个香蕉" 110,000
"一条香蕉" 66,100

Wikipedia uses 根 and 条 in one single article:
但是一根淨重約100克的香蕉的卡路里僅約87千卡
一條中等大小的香蕉含有451mg的鉀

So I'm a little bit confused which one is correct. Maybe one of those is meant for bananas after removing the peel? Or is it a regional thing? Formal vs. informal? Any insight would be nice.

I am talking about oral uses in Mandarin as followings, so there may be some differences from professional aspects.


个 can be used as the measure word for most words, human or thing. When you do not know what the correct measure word is of a word, simply use 个 (but not all words can match it).

只 can be used when talked about animals or foods. But not that accurate. As you can see, 一只香蕉 is okay.

根 is the most popular one when refered to banana. Much better than 条. Actually I seldom hear people use 条 to measure banana. Seldom do I use it together with banana. 条 perhaps is good in professional aspect, anyway, it is weird when talked about banana.

So, 个, 只 and 根 are good when you describe banana. In comparison, 个 and 根 are rather better than 只. And 根 is the best one.

it is not important.
it is only using to distinct between education and uneducation.

It is not very important to say 个 ge4, 根 gen1, 条 tiao2，or 只 zhi1, because all of these you say will tell people how many bananas you want or you want to buy.
In common, I think 根 gen1 or 只 zhi 1 is better.