Difference between revisions of "Counting money"

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* [[A Practical Chinese Grammar For Foreigners (外国人实用汉语语法)]] (pp. 88-9) [http://www.amazon.cn/mn/detailApp?_encoding=UTF8&tag=allset-23&linkCode=as2&asin=B001J0ADWA&camp=536&creative=3132&creativeASIN=B001J0ADWA →buy]
 
* [[A Practical Chinese Grammar For Foreigners (外国人实用汉语语法)]] (pp. 88-9) [http://www.amazon.cn/mn/detailApp?_encoding=UTF8&tag=allset-23&linkCode=as2&asin=B001J0ADWA&camp=536&creative=3132&creativeASIN=B001J0ADWA →buy]
* [[Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Part 1 (3rd ed)]] (pp. 233-4) [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0887276385/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=allset-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0887276385 →buy]
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* [[Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Part 1 (3rd ed)]] (pp. 233-4) [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0887276385/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=allset-20&linkCode=as2&camp=217145&creative=399369&creativeASIN=0887276385 →buy]
  
 
[[Category:A2 grammar points]]
 
[[Category:A2 grammar points]]

Revision as of 09:05, 30 January 2012

Chinese has a specific structure for talking about quantities for money:

Number + 块 + Number + 毛

The first number is the amount of whole RMB (or dollars etc.), and the second is the amount smaller units (e.g. cents). So 3.86 RMB is

  • 八 十 六 毛

If the smaller units are only in tens, you can just say the number of tens. So 3.8 RMB is:

And if there's no smaller unit, e.g. 3 RMB, you can just say:

块 is the more common, informal way to talk about money. More formally you can use 元 in exactly the same way. This is similar to the difference between "dollars" and "bucks" in American English, or "pounds" and "quid" in British English. 块 is appropriate in more situations than "bucks" or "quid", though.

See also

Sources and further reading

Books