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.
Contents
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.
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. And one hundred is simply 一百, as in English.
So you now know how to count to one hundred in Chinese.
One hundred to one thousand
| 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:
| 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
| 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
