【M's Lessons】01: About Numerals

I spoke about writing something about Chinese lessons in English for Chinese-learning beginner with Fred days ago. I thoght it's the most useful way for both of us to learn. I can practice my English writing, and the Chinese learner can learn something from my writing.

So, here we go.

Most of Chinese babies learn basic knowledge start with learning numerals. So I choose, with reason, talking about numerals as my first lesson.




-------- The cardinal numerals 基数-------

Arabic numeral --- CN reading--- EN reading
0--零（líng）--zero　
1--一（yī）--one
2--二（èr）--two ( 二also can be ” 两liǎng ” )
3--三（sān）--three
4--四（sì）--four
5--五（wǔ）--five
6--六（liù）--six
7--七（qī）--seven
8--八（bā）--eight
9--九（jiǔ）--nine

10--十（shí）--ten
11--十一（shí yī）--eleven (literal means: ten one)
12--十二（shí èr）--twelve (literal means: ten two)
13--十三（shí sān）--thirteen (…)
14--十四（shí sì）--fourteen
15--十五（shí wǔ）--fifteen
16--十六（shí liù）--sixteen
17--十七（shí qī）--seventeen
18--十八（shí bā）--eighteen
19--十九（shí jiǔ）--nineteen

20--二十（èr shí）--twenty (literal means: two ten)
21--二十一（èr shí yī）--twenty one (literal means: two ten one)
22--二十二（èr shí èr）--twenty two
23--二十三（èr shí sān）--twenty three
...
30--三十（sān shí）--thirty (literal means: three ten)
40--四十（sì shí）--fourty (literal means: four ten)
50--五十（wǔ shí）--fifty
60--六十（liù shí）--sixty
70--七十（qī shí）--seventy
80--八十（bā shí）--eighty
90--九十（jiǔ shí）--ninety

100--一百（yí bǎi）--one hundred ( 百means hundred)
101--一百零一（yí bǎi líng yí）--one hundred and one (literal means: one hundred zero one)

111--一百一十一（yí bǎi yí shí yī）--one hundred (and) eleven(literal means: one hundred zero one ten one)
200--二百（èr bǎi or liǎng bǎi）--two hundred
…
1,000 -- 一千（yí qiān）--one thousand
1,015 -- 一千零一十五--one thousand fifteen (or一千零十五)
1,255 -- 一千二百五十五 -- one thousand two hundred fifty five
…
10,000 -- 一万（yí wàn）--ten thousand
100,000 -- 一十万 --one hundred thousand
1,000,000 -- 一百万 --one million
10,000,000 -- 一千万 --ten million
100,000,000 -- 一亿（yí yì）-- one hundred million
1,000,000,000 --一十亿-- one billion
10,000,000,000 --一百亿-- ten billion
100,000,000,000 --一千亿-- one hundred billion
1,000,000,000,000 --一万亿-- one Trillion
10,000,000,000,000 --一兆（yí zhào）-- ten Trillion

… …
Zillion (数不清的无法计算的大数字)

---------------end of ---------------

Got a head ache? Yep, me too. But I searched more numerals through internet, and the zeros drive me crazy. I even don’t know how to translate into Chinese in the end of the list.

---------------****************---------------
1, 000 Thousand (千)
1, 000, 000 Million (百万)
1, 000, 000, 000 Billion (百万)
1, 000, 000, 000, 000 Trillion (十亿)
1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Quadrillion (百兆)
1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Quintillion
1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Sextillion
1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Septillion
1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Octillion
1, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000, 000 Nonillion
---------------****************---------------

I remembered I discussed about the numbers with Sit once. And it takes us a long time to understand part of them. I always get trouble with numbers. I don’t know whether I can read out part of them when I meet them somewhere.

I know there’re total different numeral systems between EN&CN. I even didn’t know how to translate the numeral before I wrote this lesson, for example “two million five hundred sixty seven thousand two hundred sixty two”, if you don’t give it in Arabic numeral “2,567,262” to me.

Usually we use the Arabic numeral in writing as well. But we have no commas between numbers in Chinese. We take 2,567,262 as 2567262.

How can we read out those numbers? Well, there is a sort cut to know it. I learned it at primary school. I don’t know how to descript perfectly. But I will try. We use decimal system (十进制). We have a principle to correct which number is thousand and which is hundred.

The ruler is:
← the larger --------------- the smaller →
……京-亿兆-千兆-万兆-百兆-十兆-兆-万亿-千亿-百亿-十亿-亿-千万-百万-十万-万-千-百-十-个

For example,

百万-十万-万-千-百-十-个
2-5-6-7-2-6-2
So， 2567262 is: 二百五十六万七千二百六十二 (2百5十6万7千2百6十2)

万-千-百-十-个
6-5-2-3-1
So，65231 is: 六万五千二百三十一

十-个
2-5
And, 25 is 二十五

We count the number form right to left. 个 (gè) means one digit numeral (from 1 to 9). 十means two digits numeral (from 10 to 99). 百 means three digits numeral (from 100 to 999)……

It’s all my faults if you don’t get it. I tried my best to explain it. I hope someone can complement it for us.

And I can easily to read the numeral in English after I wrote this lesson. Well, if there is thousand / million / billion / trillion, there will be a comma in Arabic numeral. And vice versa (反之亦然).

For example,
1,264,985 = one million two hundred sixty four thousand nine hundred eighty five

I have to do more practice to read more numerals. Caz I still can’t write the numeral immediately when I hear about it from somewhere. Well, practice makes perfect.

加油哦!


PS：

1. when you read 10-19 in Chinese, you can elide the 一(one) before 十(ten). You can say: 十 instead 一十，十二instead一十二，十三instead一十三…十九instead一十九.

2. when accountants hand writing receipts / invoices / cheques of payment, they usually use the traditional Chinese instead simple prevent someone else alter it. They have different look but pronounce the same.

Simple 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十
Traditional 壹 贰 叁 肆 伍 陆 柒 捌 玖 拾







Exercises：

1. Translate the numeral into Chinese

87946413
687893
49894
6564
1354
12
6

2. Translate the numeral into English

1,689,465,460
681,503,522
49,646,230
1,978,904
654,654
10,006
1,602
302