Structure of numbers

Mandarin numbers examples

Digit	Chinese	English
1	一	one
10	十	ten
13	一三	thirteen
20	二十	twenty
21	二十一	twenty-one
99	九十九	ninety-nine
100	一百	one hundred
101	一百零一	one hundred and one

Chinese handles numbers in a slightly different way to English. The differences occur around different units in the two languages, and the way zeros are used when reading out numbers in Chinese.

Different units

Mandarin has two units that English doesn't have (or at least, it has unique words for these units whilst English describes them with combinations of other units. These are:

• 万 - ten thousand
• 亿 - hundred million

万 comes up the most often and is the largest stumbling block for most people learning Mandarin numbers. In English, numbers are usually broken up into chunks of three digits. Because of 万, it's easier to break numbers up into groups of four in Mandarin. For example:

• 12000

Would be split into 12 000 in English (chunks of three digits), and the English reading "twelve thousand" would become more obvious. Split it the Chinese way, 1 2000, and the Chinese reading "一万两千" (one wan and two thousand) becomes more obvious.

More examples:

Separating numbers

Number	English split	English reading	Chinese split	Chinese
10000	10 000	ten thousand	1 0000	一万

Zeros

Mandarin number structure

亿	千万	百万	十万	万	千	百	十	一
One hundred millions	Ten millions	Millions	Hundred thousands	Ten thousands	Thousands	Hundreds	Tens	Ones

Sources and further reading

• East Asia Student: Mandarin numbers grammar summary