Clothes and clothing

Clothes and clothing

him, you are right that:
Clothes 要用plural form and like clothing 係一個collective noun.

想講我買左1件衫, say I've bought an item or an article of clothes/clothing. It is also OK to say I've bought a piece of clothes/clothing. But don't mix it up with a piece of cloth which means 1塊布.

想指明我買左5件衫,唔可以I bought 5 clothing or I bought 5 clothes.
Say I bought 5 items of clothes or I bought 5 items of clothing.
Don't say 5 suits of clothes, which means 5套衫.

2011-03-05 07:43:15 補充：
Thank you Jenkin for pointing out the Chinese translations :clothes是衣服clothing是衣物. Whereas, it is equally correct to say "buy an item of clothing" and "buy an item of clothes", we do usually say more directly "buy a shirt/skirt/dress".

eicachan 和 Jenkin 解釋得很清楚. 而這問題令我想起clothing以下的例子/ 用法.

http://www.clothingtraining.org.hk/lang_tchi/main2.html
Clothing Industry Training Authority 製衣業訓練局
(在網上搜尋較少見到用 Clothes Industry)

2011-03-05 05:25:43 補充：
另外, 在日常對話中, 如果我們只是講到「買衫」, 應該甚少會用到clothing.

http://www.ldoceonline.com/dictionary/clothing

This word is not used much in ordinary spoken language
• I went shopping for summer clothes (NOT clothing).

2011-03-05 05:26:03 補充：
Use clothing to talk about a particular type of clothes (講及特別類型的衣服) or when talking about making or selling clothes
• Special protective clothing is worn. (穿著特別的保護衣)
• a clothing manufacturer

002已經解得很清楚，
5 pieces of clothes 跟 5 pieces of clothing大體上是一樣的意思。
不過我試用中文的同等番譯詞考慮是不可以給你在意思一點細微分別。

clothes是衣服
clothing是衣物

兩個的中文仍是collective，意思亦相近，但當你說衣服時的用意是以一件件穿上的東西的角度，而衣物卻是以其功能/服裝性能來作主題，英這的clothes跟clothing亦類同的，希望可以給你多一點為何會出現兩個差不多同義又同質的詞。

我推薦您一個非常不錯的英語學習網站，里面有很多非常不錯的學習資源：

http://www.hkenglishstudy.info

希望可以幫到你!