How to Count in Chinese
Chinese is the most commonly-spoken language in the world, with over one billion people speaking at least one of the many regional dialects and variants of the language. Many businesses are based in China, and learning how to count in Chinese can give you an edge in business as well as in socializing with people with Chinese ancestry. If you want to learn how to count in Chinese, here’s a good place to start.
Rules of Chinese Counting
Chinese can be a complicated language, but it’s fairly easy to understand the conventions of counting. Like almost all languages, the Chinese count in base ten. While English and other similar languages rely almost exclusively on addition and unique terms to denote numbers, the Chinese rely on multiplication and addition to write and spell out numbers.
For Westerners to understand Chinese better, romanized Chinese (pinyin) is used to spell out Chinese characters the way they are pronounced.
Counting from Zero to Ten
Unlike other languages, the number zero is an important element of counting in the Chinese language. Like in an abacus, the zero value can denote the value of a number in the hundredths cardinal and higher. Here are the Chinese equivalents of the values zero to ten:
0: ling
1: yi
2: er
3: san
4: si
5: wu
6: liu
7: qi
8: ba
9: jiu
10: shi
Counting from Eleven to Ninety-Nine
Chinese uses the “building blocks” of zero to ten to make names for higher numbers. The number ten (shi) is the base for the numbers eleven to ninety-nine. To make numbers from shi, a value is multiplied by ten and denotes the base value, while the quantity of the number is added to the base value. The zero value ling is also used. Here are some examples:
11: shiyi
20: ershi
22: ershi’er
50: si’shi
59: si’shi’qi
77: qi’qi
81: bashiyi
94: jiushijiu
Counting Hundreds, Thousands, and Millions
The same principle holds for hundreds, thousands, and millions:
100: yibai
782: qibaibashi’er
1,000: yiqian
3,621: san’qian’liubai’ershi’yi
10,000: yibaiwan
One million: yibaiwan
Learning a foreign language is easy if you start with their counting methods. With these reminders, you can easily figure out the patterns of the Chinese counting system and easily count stuff in Chinese. For more information on China, read Glimpse into great china and as a bonus learn how to play mahjong to practice your Chinese counting prowess.