 Classical Chinese tends toward a one-to-one correspondence between word, syllable, and a written character.Counting the number of syllables (which could be read as varying lengths, according to the context), together with the caesuras, or pauses within the line, and a stop, or long pause at the end of the line, generally established the meter.The characters (or syllables) between the caesuras or end stops can be considered to be a metric foot.