Table of Contents
How do you read Mandarin numbers?
It’s very common to see this Chinese character: 〇 (líng) for “zero (0)”, but you might still run into this one: 零 (líng) – “zero (0)” as well. Note that 二 (èr, “two (2)”) is mostly used when counting or giving out a phone number….Chinese Numbers 1-10.
| Number | Chinese Character | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| 2 | 二 | èr |
| 3 | 三 | sān |
| 4 | 四 | sì |
| 5 | 五 | wǔ |
How do numbers work in Mandarin?
The Mandarin numbering system is a bit different from English. For example, the number ‘2’ has two forms. 二 (èr) is used for counting, and 兩 / 两 (traditional/simplified) (liǎng) is used with a measure word….Mandarin Number Table.
| 0 | ling | 零 |
|---|---|---|
| 1000 | yì qiān | 一千 |
| 1001 | yì qiān líng yī | 一千零一 |
| … | ||
| 10,000 | yì wàn | 一萬 |
What does 7 mean in Chinese chat?
七 (qī) — “Seven” sounds the same as 气 (qì) — “air,” as in 生气 (shēng qì) — “to be angry.”
What kind of number system does China have?
A Brief Description of the Chinese Number System. The Chinese system is also a base-10 system, but has important differences in the way the numbers are represented. Chinese has characters for numbers 0 through 9, as seen above. In addition to the character shown above for zero, a simple circle is also used.
What is the difference between English and Mandarin Chinese numbers?
In English we have a habit of sometimes grouping numbers together, such as “0 Eight Hundred” for 0800 or “Twenty Two, Treble One, Nine” for 221119. In Mandarin Chinese this is not the case. All individual numbers are spoken making it easy to remember.
Does China still use the Arabic numeral system?
While China has for many uses adopted the Arabic numeral system familiar around the world, it also still uses its native Chinese character number system.
Why do Chinese numbers have so many complex characters?
To prevent fraud when writing checks and other cases where fraud is possible, Chinese also uses a series of more complex characters for the numbers. It is easy to change a “one” into a “two” in regular characters, but with the formal complex characters, this is impossible. See above for a listing of the equivalent formal characters.