Counting money

Cash rules everything around us, and in China there's no exception. Mastering how to say quantities of money is vital!

Structure

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

Number + 块 + Number + 毛

Examples

• 三 块 八 毛 3.8
• 十 块 两 毛 10.2
• 九 块 五 毛 9.5
• 一 块 七 毛 1.7
• 五 十 块 五 毛 50.5
• 七 十 二 块 四 毛 72.4
• 一 百 块 五 毛 100.5
• 五 百 块 三 毛 500.3
• 两 千 两 百 块 两 毛 2200.2
• 三 千 一 百 块 一 毛 3100.1

If the smaller units are only in tens, you can just say the number of tens. So 3.86 RMB is "三 块 八 (sān kuài bā)". Also this way of speaking is normally only used in matters with less than 100.

• 三 块 八Three kuai eight (3.8)
• 十 块 二Ten kuai two (10.2)
• 九 块 五Nine kuai five (9.5)
• 一 块 七One kuai seven (1.7)
• 五 十 块 五Fifty kuai five (50.5)
• 七 十 二 块 四Seventy-two kuai four (72.4)
• 二 十 三 块 八Twenty-three kuai eight (23.8)
• 两 百 一 十 二 块 三Two hundred and twelve kuai three (212.3)
• 一 百 七 十 二 块 四One hundred and seventy-two kuai four (172.4)
• 一 千 三 百 五 十 八 块 五One thousand three hundred and fifty-eight kuai five (1358.5)

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

• 三 块 八 毛 六3.86

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

• 三 块Three kuai

块 (kuài) is the more common, informal way to talk about money. More formally you can use 元 (yuán) 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 (kuài) is appropriate in more situations than "bucks" or "quid", though.

See also

• Indicating a Number in Excess
• Approximating with sequential numbers

Sources and further reading

Books

• A Practical Chinese Grammar For Foreigners (外国人实用汉语语法) (pp. 88-9) →buy
• Integrated Chinese: Level 1, Part 1 (3rd ed) (pp. 233-4) →buy