YellowBridge Chinese American Guide Your Ultimate Bridge to China Guide to Chinese Language and Culture

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).
0 líng  
1  
2 èr See note above regarding the number 2.
2 liǎng
3 sān  
4  
5  
6 liù  
7  
8  
9 jiǔ  
10 shí  
11 shíyī 十一  
12 shí'èr 十二  
20 èrshí 二十  
21 èrshíyī 二十一  
22 èrshí'èr 二十二  
30 sānshí 三十  
40 sìshí 四十  
100 yībǎi 一百  
101 yībǎi líng yī 一百零一  
102 yībǎi líng èr 一百零二  
110 yībǎi shí 一百十  
111 yībǎi shíyī 一百十一  
120 yībǎi èrshí 一百二十  
200 liǎngbǎi 两百  
300 sānbǎi 三百  
1,000 yīqiān 一千  
10,000 yīwàn 一万  
100,000 shíwàn 十万  
1,000,000 yībǎiwàn 一百万  
100,000,000   一亿  

Next

  ©2003-2008 J. Lau. All rights reserved.