Chinese Numbers
Chinese (Mandarin) Numbers
Chinese (Mandarin) numbers are quite easy. You only need to know the first ten to be able to form any number from 11 to 99. Bigger numbers aren't any more difficult, as long as you know the Chinese words for hundred, thousand, etc.
It is important to start learning Chinese numbers as early as possible. Why? Because they convey much more information per syllable than ordinary words and thus are intolerant to mistakes. Let me illustrate this idea with an example. Consider two sentences:
(1) Beijing is the capital of China.
(2) My phone number is 53298375.
If you accidentally skip any one syllable in (1) the listener/reader will still be able to recover the whole message. By contrast, if sentence (2) was missing a digit it would be unrecoverable. This isn't just a thought experiment but a challenge many students face, even when they are already quite fluent. They may know all the Chinese numerals but if they can't process them quickly they might end up in an unpleasant situation.
If you believe that you already know Chinese numbers well enough consider testing your skills with our number games at the top of this page.
Contents
Chinese Numbers from 0 to 10
Numbers from 0 to 10 are single-syllable words that are easy to pronounce and memorise in writing. Their pronunciation never changes depending on where you use them in a sentence but there are a few nuances:
- The tone of 一 yī always changes when followed by another syllable. If that syllable is a 4th tone then 一 becomes a 2nd tone: yí. If 一 is followed by any other tone its pronunciation changes to the 4th: yì.
- In telephone numbers and whenever you break down a large number into single digits, 一 is pronounced yāo to avoid any confusion with 七 qī seven.
- 二 èr changes to 两 liǎng when it occurs before a measure word.
- According to the general tone change rule, when followed by a 3rd tone, 五 wǔ five and 九 jiǔ nine become wú and jiú, respectively.
The following table contains Chinese numbers from 0 to 10. (The table for hundreds, thousands, etc. is here.)
| Number | Char. | Pron. |
|---|
Chinese Numbers from 11 to 99
Forming any two-digit Chinese number is easy. Just say the first digit followed by the Chinese word for ten 十 shí, then the second digit. If the first digit is 1 (as in 11, 12, 13, etc.) you omit it. Similarly, if the number ends in a zero you omit it as well. For example:
| # | Literally | Chinese |
| 15 | ten - five |
十五 shí wǔ |
| 21 | two - ten - one |
二十一 èr shí yī |
| 42 | four - ten - two |
四十二 sì shí èr |
| 70 | seven - ten |
七十 qī shí |
Chinese Numbers from 100 to 999
The Chinese for hundred is 百 bǎi. One hundred is 一百 yì bǎi, two hundred is 二百 èr bǎi, three hundred is 三百 sān bǎi, and so on.
Note that 一百 is pronounced yì bǎi, not yī bǎi, because 一 yī always changes its tone when followed by another syllable.
Generally, three-digit Chinese numbers are pretty straightforward and similar to their English counterparts. Their is one peculiarity, though:
If the second digit is a zero you have to explicitly say it. For example, 101 is 一百零一 yì bǎi líng yī, 309 is 三百零九 sān bǎi líng jiǔ.
Let's take a look at some more examples of three-digit Chinese numbers:
| # | Literally | Chinese |
| 115 | one - hundred - ten - five |
一百十五 yì bǎi shí wǔ |
| 321 | three - hundred - two - ten - one |
三百二十一 sān bǎi èr shí yī |
| 542 | five - hundred - four - ten - two |
五百四十二 wú bǎi sì shí èr |
| 970 | nine - hundred - seven - ten |
九百七十 jiú bǎi qī shí |
Chinese Numbers from 1,000
This is probably the trickiest topic in Chinese numbers, since Chinese uses a different nomenclature for numbers with a lot of zeroes. In the West, people are used to thousands, millions, billions, trillions, etc., which don't exist in the Chinese language. Instead, people use the following system:
| Number | Char. | Pron. |
|---|
You might be able to discern a kind of pattern in this system but I think it's best to just learn these numbers by heart. When you need to tell someone what the population of your home country is you have little time to conduct mental calculations. You would be better off associating these large multiples with what can be expressed in them. For example, there are a few billion people on this planet (...times 1,000,000,000 十亿 shí yì); or, I make £40,000-£60,000 a year (...times 10,000 万 wàn).
As long as you know the basic numbers from the above table, you can easily form any number in between. It works the same way as in English, with one tiny exception regarding zeroes, which is akin to what has been stated about zeroes in three-digit numbers:
Any sequence of zeroes followed by a non-zero digit must be explicitly indicated with one (and only one) 零 líng.
| # | Chinese |
| 10,100 |
一万零一百 yí wàn líng yì bǎi |
| 100,001 |
十万零一 shí wàn líng yī |
Don't forget that the general tone change rules apply as well.
Let's try and say some random ugly number in Chinese:
3,048,509
三百零四万八千五百零九
sān bǎi líng sì wàn bā qiān wǔ bǎi líng jiǔ
Chinese Numbers Pronunciation
Let's summarise the pronunciation rules that we have discussed in the sections above.
- The tone of 一 yī always changes when followed by another syllable. If that syllable is a 4th tone then 一 becomes a 2nd tone: yí. If 一 is followed by any other tone its pronunciation changes to the 4th: yì.
- If 一 is the last digit of a number it is pronounced as yī.
- When you break down a large number into single digits (e. g., a telephone number), 一 is pronounced yāo to avoid any confusion with 七 qī seven.
- 二 èr changes to 两 liǎng when it occurs before a measure word.
- According to the general tone change rule, when followed by a 3rd tone, 五 wǔ five, 九 jiǔ nine, 百 bǎi hundred, become wú, jiú, and bái, respectively. If there is a sequence of 3rd tones they all change to the 2nd tone, except the last one which remains unchanged.
Chinese Number Game
Practise Chinese numbers by playing our Chinese Numbers Games at the top of this page. It is absolutely free, no registration is required.
Regardless of your level, these games can help you master Chinese numbers. If you are already confident that you know them well you might still want to test how quickly you can process them.
The Digits Game
You are presented with an Arabic number which you have to translate into Chinese. If you remember it well you press the I remember button, otherwise you press I don't remember. The answer is revealed to you in the form of Chinese characters, Pinyin, and audio.
This works like flashcards. You are challenged more frequently with numbers that you tend to forget.
The Telephone Game
In this game, you listen to phone numbers and key them back in. It develops the practical skill of understanding phone numbers, as well as any other long sequences of digits.
Keep in mind that the number one 一 in phone numbers is pronounced yāo.