Structure of numbers

Mandarin numbers examples
Digit Chinese English
1 one
10 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
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

Zeros

Mandarin number structure
亿 千万 百万 十万
One hundred millions Ten millions Millions Hundred thousands Ten thousands Thousands Hundreds Tens Ones

Sources and further reading