Structure of numbers

Chinese handles numbers in a very consistent and logical way. The system does have some tricky parts, but once you've learnt it you will know how to read out any number in Chinese.

One to one hundred

Single digits are handled the same way as in English, nothing tricky there.

Eleven, twelve and the teens are handled very logically - they're formed with 十 followed by a digit 一 to 九. So eleven is 十一, twelve is 十二, thirteen is 十三 and so on up to nineteen, which is 十九.

Structure

十 x

All the tens are also formed very logically. Twenty is 二十, thirty is 三十 and so on. Units in the tens are simply added on the end. So twenty one is 二十一, thirty four is 三十四 and ninety nine is 九十九. All very logical and consistent.

Structure

x + 十 + y

examples

• 二十三23
• 三十九39
• 四十四44
• 九十七97

And one hundred is simply 一百, as in English. So you now know how to count to one hundred in Chinese.

After one hundred

Structure

x + 百 + y + 十 + z

Note: when there's a "0" in the middle of a number, you read it as 零 (líng), and don't put a number after it.

So for "103" you would say:

• 一百 零 三 (Note the lack of 十 here.)one hundred three
• 一百 零十 三 (The 十 is unwanted here.)

examples

• 三百一十八318
• 七百零九709
• 六百三十630
• 一百二十三123
• 两百四十240
• 九百一十五915

More examples

Mandarin numbers examples

Digit	Chinese	English
1	一	one
10	十	ten
13	十三	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
110	一百一十	one hundred and ten
119	一百一十九	one hundred and ninteen

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 logical.

More examples:

Separating numbers

English split	English reading	Chinese split	Chinese
10 000	ten thousand	1 0000	一万
13 200	thirteen thousand two hundred	1 3200	一万三千两百
56 700	fifty six thousand seven hundred	5 6700	五万六千七百

Mandarin number structure

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

See also

• Big Numbers
• Structure of dates
• Structure of days of the week

Sources and further reading

Websites

• East Asia Student: Mandarin numbers grammar summary

Books

• Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Part 1 (3rd ed) (pp. 70-1)　→buy
• Chinese: An Essential Grammar, Second Edition (pp. 15-6) →buy
• New Practical Chinese Reader 1 (新实用汉语课本1) (pp. 104) →buy
• New Practical Chinese Reader 1 (新实用汉语课本1)(2nd ed) (pp. 122) →buy
• New Practical Chinese Reader 2 (新实用汉语课本2) (pp. 18) →buy
• New Practical Chinese Reader 3 (新实用汉语课本3) (pp. 81) →buy