Chinese for the Casual Learner
Numbers
Counting in Chinese is very straightforward but there are a few differences that you need to remember:
- There are two words for the number two. èr is
used to indicate the ordinal number 2 (such as Chapter 2 or the second
book) while liǎng is when counting things (such as two books). When reading a number a two at
the front of the number that is 200 and above, two is read as liǎng but all other two's should be read as èr.
- Unlike English, numbers between 11 and 19 are read as ten-one, ten-two, etc.
All other two digit numbers follow the same rule, twenty-one, twenty-two.
- Every zero digit in the middle of the number should be read out individually.
Hence 102 is yībǎi líng èr because yībǎi èr is actually a shorthand for yībǎi èrshí or 120. However, trailing zeroes or zeroes which are only followed by other
zeroes should not be read out.
- In English, we give names to each group of three decimal positions. Hence the
next named grouping after a thousand is a million (103), followed
by a billion (106), a trillion(109), etc. Although the Chinese do have a name
for a thousand, higher decimals are named based on grouping of four
decimal positions. Hence there's a name for 10,000 (yīwàn = 104), a name for 100,000,000(108).
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