First about ur Pinyin sentence: "nǐ xǐ huān yì hé méi guī ma" means "Do u like a box of roses" or in chinese "你喜欢一盒玫瑰吗". It's such a strange question. If u wanna express the meaning "Do u like roses", u'd better say "你喜欢玫瑰吗" or "nǐ xǐ huān méi guī ma" in Pinyin. And then, more details about articles in chinese. U know, in english articles r words "the, a, an" combined with a noun to indicate the type of reference being made by the noun. But it's totally distinct from chinese. The articles in chinese r usually not used in a single character. All articles must b combined with another character called measure word or classifier word. eg: 一本书 - yì běn shū - a book In translation, "book" means "书(shū)" while "一(yì)" is "a". But u couldn't translate "a book" into "一书" coz we have to add a measure word, here is "本(běn)". U must add a measure word between the article and the noun in chinese and what's more, most of nouns have their only one right measure words. So u couldn't use such a measure word to decorate an irrelated noun. And let's back to that sentence u mentioned, Lyuba: nǐ xǐ huān yī hé méi guī ma Here we never use "hé"(盒) to decorate "méi guī"(玫瑰). "hé"(盒) means "box" which much decorates anything in such a box. For example: yì hé bǐng gān(一盒饼干, a box of cookies). So if those roses r stored in a box, u could say "yì hé méi guī" but we usually say "yì duǒ méi guī"(一朵玫瑰, a rose) or "yì shù méi guī"(一束玫瑰, a bouquet of roses). There'r hundreds of measure words in chinese and u have to remember them one by one, also how to decorate a proper noun. Here's the list of most used measure words in chinese: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_classifiers. And one more tip for u: there'a so many words and even chinese sometimes don’t know the right measure word, and then we'd like to use the general measure word "gè"(个) All clear? If not, just tell me

你喜欢一盒玫瑰吗？” ni xi huan yi he mei gui ma?” What exactly are you trying to say? Anyway, in English it is incorrect to say "Do you like a rose?" It is incorrect in Chinese, too. You need to ask: "Ni xi huan meigui ma?" Do you like roses?

I guess you confused by quantifier of chinese. such as 个，盒，瓶. if you mean is common object,then you can not use quantifier .for example 你喜欢电脑吗？ = do you like computer? if you mean is some or specific things ,then you should use quantifier. for example 你喜欢那条金色的项链吗？＝Do you like that gold necklace？ 条（tiao2）:describe something with string shape.

Eliot is exactly right. By the way, the words, you mentioned such as ge个, are called "measure words" they are used when talking about an object, thing, person or when stating a number of something. Its just like in English when we say "one loaf of bread" or "one gallon of milk" think of it that way. examples: yi ge ping guo 一个苹果 : one apple (个used for people, and most objects) san ben shu 三本书: three books (本used for books) yi zhi gou 一只狗 - one dog (只 for small things/objects) yi jian chen shan 一件衬衫 - one blouse (件 used for clothing) Measure words vary depending on what object you are talking about! One of my favorite things about Mandarin Chinese!

I guess you confused by quantifier of chinese. such as 个，盒，瓶. if you mean is common object,then you can not use quantifier .for example ni3 xi3 hua1 dian4 nao3 ma1？ = do you like computer? if you mean is some or specific things ,then you should use quantifier. for example ni3 xi3 hua1 nai4 tiao2 jin1 se4 de1 xiang4 lian4 ma1？＝Do you like that gold necklace？ 条（tiao2）:describe something with string shape. Ps:Lyuba, I suggest you should learn characters as soon as posible.it is very improtant to you. you can learn each character how to write and it's pin yin.