Learn Chinese for Free - Lesson 6

LESSON 6

Today's Chinese characters:

Today we're going to learn how to correctly say in Chinese "two persons" and how to count from 100 to 99,999,999.

Characters' Knowledge Meter
Today with this lesson your characters' knowledge will reach 4.41% of all the Chinese characters usage!	4.41%

Characters' Essentials

Character

Pronunciation

Meaning

liang3

-	Two. is generally used before measure words. Don't use

bai3

Hundred

qian1

Thousand

wan4

-	Ten thousand

Description and Examples

As said explaining the different use of and , is generally not used before measure words.

Infact, the correct Chinese phrase for "two persons" is:

translation: two persons

Numbers Key Points

The method that I personally use to figure in my mind numbers in Chinese is to associate the appropriate Chinese character to the 1, 2, 3, 4 or 8 zeros number.

1 zero numbers

The key Chinese character for 1 zero numbers is .

The Chinese character after it indicates units, the one before it indicates tens.

Only remember that numbers from 10 to 19 don't have before , and that "zero" is never written or read when at the end of a number (as in 10, 20, 30 or 100, 2000, 30000).

Examples

fifteen

fifty-five

ninety

2 zeros numbers

Key Chinese character is .

After it we would put numbers from 1 to 99, as explained under the preceding subtitle (in this case, numbers from 10 to 19 do have before ).

The Chinese character before indicates hundreds ( must be written to indicate one hundred).

Examples

one hundred

one hundred and ten

three-hundred

three-hundred and thirty

three-hundred and thirty-three

I've not mentioned numbers from 101 to 109 because you still don't know how to say and write "zero". Tomorrow you'll study the character for "zero", even if it's not among the 1000 most used Chinese characters.

PRONUNCIATION RULE: When two third tones are in succession, the first third tone changes into a second tone, that is: 3rd + 3rd changes into 2nd + 3rd.

For example, wu3 bai3 (meaning: 500) is actually pronounced as wu2 bai3; and jiu3 bai3 (meaning: 900) is pronounced jiu2 bai3.

3 zeros numbers

Key Chinese character: .

The Chinese character before it indicates thousands. After it, numbers from 1 to 999 as said above.

Examples

one thousand

nine-thousand nine-hundred ninety-nine

4 zeros numbers

Chinese language has a single key character for four zeros numbers: .

The Chinese character before it indicates tens of thousands. It's followed by numbers from 1 to 9999 written as usual.

Examples

ten-thousand

twelve-thousand

forty-four thousand four-hundred forty-four

8 zeros numbers

Chinese language has also a single key character indicating hundreds of millions. It's not among the 1000 most used Chinese characters. Anyway, in order to complete the subject "numbers", tomorrow you'll study it together with the character for "zero".

Exercise

Pronounce as fast as possible the following numbers:

11,111
33,333
99,999

Chinese Character 14 of 1000
character's usage score # 133
frequency 0.1522449%

Character	Animation	Strokes
		7

Pronunciation

Meaning

liang3

-	Two
-	ATTENTION Use of and : is generally used before measure words and before . is always used when counting, as decimal number, as fraction, as percentage, as ordinal number, before , before or as unit. Both can be used before Chinese traditional measures of length, capacity or weight, but is used more frequently (must say , cannot say ). Before modern measures of length, capacity or weight (as kilometer or ton), is used more frequently instead. Both can be used before , , and . Anyway, in numbers with preceded by or , before is used more frequently .
-	Some, a few
-	Both (sides), either (side)
-	A measure word (a unit of weight = 50 grams)