Chinese Numbers Part I: A Guide for Numbers up to 1000 in Mandarin

Numbers are everywhere in our lives, and our life is built on top of numbers.

We start with our fingers when we want to count how many pieces of pies to eat.

We pick up the phone and dial a number, talking to that person at the end of the line.

We count the stars when we can't fall asleep at night.

We listen to the tick of time and clocks record those counts.

We calculate what we eat what we use, and the price that we pay them for.

We build up computers to run complex calculations with 0 and 1, and those two simple numbers convert into infinite possibilities, carrying our past, present, and future.

From the smallest particles to the grandest galaxies, endless counts of matter breed endless counts of life.

And we count our years from the beginning to the end.

Needless to say, numbers are an essential and important part of a language.

In this series of articles, we present a complete guide from small (<1000) to large numbers (up to a trillion) in Mandarin Chinese, and their usage in our daily life.

Here, as a beginning guide, we will start with simple numbers below 1000 in Chinese, going over how to use them and the most basic and fundamental things to learn - which is great for beginners. And everything we'll go over in this article will provide foundations for the rest to come.

Basic Words and Concepts

Arabic numerals (normal Western numbers) are no doubt most commonly used in our life for numbers, same in Chinese too. But sometimes, Chinese characters for numbers are also used. This is the same in English, as there are situations where we need to spell out the number rather than using Arabic numbers.

Therefore, as a starting step, it is important to learn these basic number words.

Here is a list of Chinese numerals (数字, shù zì) below:

小写 "lowercase"	大写 "uppercase"	Pinyin	Number/Translation
〇	零	líng	0
一	壹	yī	1
二	贰	èr	2
三	叁	sān	3
四	肆	sì	4
五	伍	wǔ	5
六	陆	liù	6
七	柒	qī	7
八	捌	bā	8
九	玖	jiǔ	9
半		bàn	half
个		gè	1/individual/universal measure word
十	拾	shí	10
百	佰	bǎi	100
千	仟	qiān	1000
万	万	wàn	104 (10 thousand)
亿	亿	yì	108 (100 million)
兆	兆	zhào	1012 (1 trillion)

Notice that there are two sets of characters in Chinese numeral systems - 小写, and 大写, meaning "lowercase" and "uppercase". However, the corresponding characters have the same pinyin for a given number in the two sets.

You can view them as simplified and traditional forms for numeral characters, although both sets are used in China.

The 小写 character set is, of course, much more commonly used, except for 0, in which case 零 is more used than 〇 (this is a common practice).

For some situations, however, the 大写 set is necessary. For bank checks, formal invoices, contract documents, and other formal financial-related paperwork, 大写 numbers are typically used. This is a way that people used to use to prevent forgery, as the 小写 numbers are simple and easy to counterfeit. Of course, nowadays, better anti-counterfeiting technologies are being developed. But 大写 numbers remain to be used as a convention.

Note that before 十 (ten), we also included two characters 半 and 个. These two are not Chinese numerals but are used as numbers. 半 means half and 个 has many meanings and usages, including the meaning of individual one, the universal measure word, or as a scale unit of 1.

In fact, starting from 个, the following are the Chinese decimal digits:

个，十，百，千，万，十万，百万，千万，亿……

(1, 10, 100, 1000, 10⁴, 10⁵, 10⁶, 10⁷, 10⁸…)

For characters starting from 万 (ten thousand), both 大写 and 小写 characters are the same since they are less used. There are many more after 兆 (1 trillion), but they are rarely used and thus not listed here.

Just be aware that, unlike in English where a new number word comes every three number places (thousand = 10³, million = 10⁶, billion = 10⁹, etc.), in Chinese, it's every four number places (万 = 10⁴, 亿 = 10⁸, 兆 = 10¹², etc.).

Since 小写 numbers are the dominant characters people use in daily life, therefore, the rest of this article will focus on these 小写 numbers.

Numbers from 1 to 10

The most basic and most used numbers are, of course, 1 to 10. All the numbers beyond, are built on the basis of these numbers.

Here, let's first take a look at some examples of how to use numbers from 1-10.

A lot of the time, people use numbers for counting items. In such cases, a measure word is used following the number, then followed by the item.

半个苹果 (bàn gè píng guǒ), half an apple

一双手 (yī shuāng shǒu), a pair of hands

两只猫 (liǎng zhī māo), two cats

三个番茄 (sān gè fān qié), three tomatoes

四朵花 (sì duǒ huā), four flowers

五片面包 (wǔ piàn miàn bāo), five slices of bread

六本书 (liù běn shū), six books

七棵树 (qī kē shù), seven trees

八颗星星 (bā kē xīng xīng), eight stars

九头牛 (jiǔ tóu niú), nine cows

十匹马 (shí pǐ mǎ), ten horses

The above examples show different things with counts from half, 1, and up to 10.

As we can see, different measure words are used for different items. Some measure words are used more commonly, like 个 (the most general one) and 只 (usually for smaller animals).

There are also measure words that are used very specifically. Like 朵 for flowers, 本 for books, 棵 for trees, 匹 for horses, etc.

Unfortunately, there are many measure words, and different ones are used for different things. And there is no way around it but to learn them by memorization and repeated practice.

二 (èr) vs. 两 (liǎng)

Something to keep in mind is that here, we use 两 + measure word + item, rather than 二 for two counts of something.

And sometimes, it may just be 两 + measure word/subject/number:

两人 (liǎng rén), the two people, or both of them

两边 (liǎng biān), both sides

两侧 (liǎng cè), both sides

两半 (liǎng bàn), two halves, 2 × 0.5

两个 (liǎng gè), two, 2 × 1

两百 (liǎng bǎi), two hundred, 2 × 100

两千 (liǎng qiān), two thousand, 2 × 1000

两万 (liǎng wàn), 20 thousand, 2 × 10⁴

两亿 (liǎng yì), 200 million, 2 × 10⁸

……

Note that 二 can also be used for number words listed in the table above starting from 百, but it's less common.

Pay attention that for 十 (ten), only 二 can be used - it's 二十 not 两十!

On the other hand, when you count, 二 is used. Like this:

"一，二，三，四……"

In other situations, like rankings, orders, and dates, 二 is also used:

第二个 (dì èr gè), the second one

第二名 (dì èr míng), the second place

第二天 (dì èr tiān), the second day

二号 (èr hào), number two

二月二号 (èr yuè èr hào), February 2nd

星期二 (xīng qī èr), Tuesday

In general, for ordinal numerals, fractions, math, chemicals, and other terminologies, 二 is typically used.

However, there is also this word: 二两.

What does that mean? It seems confusing, right?

So 两 also is used as a unit for weights, which means 50 grams nowadays (used to mean a different weight in the past).

Therefore, 二两 means 2 parts of 50 g, that is, 100 g.

Typically, when 两 is used as a unit, we would use it for alcohol, gold, silver, and sometimes food ingredients.

To recap, it's almost always safe to use 二 for two, except for expressing two counts of something: 两 + measure word + item or 两 + number word.

I know this is a little weird. Why two, right?

But that's just how things go. Sometimes you have to embrace the weirdness as that's the rule everyone follows.

Numbers up to 100

We've looked at numbers up to 10 above, now what about numbers over 10?

First of all, let's take a look at numbers from 11 to 19.

We know that 10 is 十, and 1 is 一. So, to say 11, it's simply 10+1: 十一.

This is true for all of 11-19:

十一，十二，十三，十四，十五，十六，十七，十八，十九

(11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19)

Easy, right?

Now, what about 20, 30, and more?

That's also simple!

It's 2+10 for 20: 二十, 3+10 for 30: 三十, and so on. (The "+" here indicates the combination of words, nothing related to math!)

Ok, everything makes sense.

Now, what about 21-29, 31-39, and beyond?

Well, again, we follow the same rules we've just seen above:

二十，二十一，二十二，二十三，二十四……三十，三十一……三十九，四十……

(20, 21, 22, 23, 24…30, 31…39, 40…)

And the story continues, all the way up to 九十九, 99.

All makes perfect sense.

As you can see, Chinese numbers aren't hard to get. Well, at least so far, everything is simple and clear.

With the ten basic numbers from 1 to 10, we can easily make it up to 99.

Do pay attention that for numbers <100, 零 is only used when it's 0.

Also, note that 两 is only used for two (for numbers <100) when you are saying two counts of something. It is not used for numbers like 12 (十二), 20 (二十), 22 (二十二), etc.

两个西瓜 (liǎng gè xī guā), two watermelons

十二双鞋 (shí èr shuāng xié), twelve pairs of shoes

二十只鸭子 (èr shí zhī yā zi), twenty ducks

五十二个鸡蛋 (wǔ shí èr gè jī dàn), 52 eggs

Numbers up to 1000

Next, let's start from 100.

Recall the 百 is a hundred in the table above. Therefore, one hundred is 1+100: 一百.

Here, 一 must be explicitly spelled out for one hundred, unlike ten is just 十. Though in fact 一十 is sometimes used but less commonly.

Now, what about 101 to 109?

They are:

一百零一，一百零二，一百零三，一百零四……一百零九

(101, 102, 103, 104…109)

The format is 1-100-0-number.

零 (0) must be used between the hundred and the number of the digit place.

This usage of 0 is to distinguish between 110, 120, and so on (up to 190):

一百一，一百二，一百三，一百四……一百九

(110, 120, 130, 140…190)

The format is 1-100-number.

Sometimes, 十 can be added to the end to express the same number (一百一十 for 110). But it's less commonly done.

For 111-119, simply add the rules we've seen so far:

一百一十一，一百一十二，一百一十三……一百一十九

(111, 112, 113…119)

Note that from 11-19, we skipped the 一 in front of 十一 to 十九. But here, the 一 is not omitted!

For 121-129, the same rules: 一百二十一 to 一百二十九.

And following the same format, we can count up to 199: 一百九十九.

Similarly, when we count from 200 to 299, the same rules are used. The only thing we need to keep in mind is that 两 can be used in front of 百 (hundred). (Recall we mentioned above that 两百 is used for 200.)

两百 = 二百, 200

两百零二 = 二百零二, 202

两百零六 = 二百零六, 206

两百一 = 二百一, 210

两百一十二 = 二百一十二, 212

两百二 = 二百二, 220

两百二十二 = 二百二十二, 222

两百二十八 = 二百二十八, 228

两百七十二 = 二百七十二, 272

……

As you can see, 两 can only be used for 百 (hundred) here, not for 十 (ten) or 个 (digit) places!

Going from there, the same rules are applied from 300 (三百) up to 999 (九百九十九), and that's all the numbers below 1000.

Moving forward, we are still using the same set of rules we've mentioned here, just with more combinations. And sometimes things can get complicated - so buckle up!

If you are ready to explore more numbers above and beyond, please continue reading Chinese Numbers Above 1000.