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# Chinese numerals

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Today, speakers of Chinese use two numeral systems: There is the ubiquitous system of arabic digits and the ancient Chinese numeral system, which becomes, however, gradually supplanted by the former.

The Chinese numeral system is not a positional system. Instead, it is based on decimal bundling. The rules for forming numbers are quite simple:

1. The numeral characters are tightly integrated into the language: Each numeral character has a phonetic value and a number is read by pronouncing each individual character it consists of, unlike e.g. English, where the numeral '2' has to be pronounced 'two' or 'twenty' depending on position.
2. There are eleven 'basic' numeral characters representing the numbers zero through ten. Their phonetic values in Mandarin are:

- 'ling2' ('0')
- 'yi1' ('1')
- 'er2' ('2')
- 'san1' ('3')
- 'si1' ('4')
- 'wu3' ('5')
- 'liu4' ('6')
- 'qi1' ('7')
- 'ba1' ('8')
- 'jiu3' ('9')
- 'shi2' ('10')

1. The numbers 11 - 19 are written using two characters, where the first one is the basic numeral '10' and the second one is one of the basic numerals '1' to '9' (i.e. 14 is written as '10' '4')
2. The numbers 20, 30, 40 ... 90 are constructed using a multiplicative principle, where, e.g., 60 is represented as '6' '10'; the numbers in between are formed like 11-19, so that, e.g., 42 is '4' '10' '2'.
3. There are numeral characters for 100 ('bai3'); 1000 ('qian1'); 10,000 ('wan4') and 100,000,000 ('yi4'). The above principles are extended, so that 1,372,526 is spelt '1' '100' '3' '10' '7' '10,000' '2' '1,000' '5' '100' '2' '10' '6' and pronounced 'yi1 bai3 san1 shi2 qi1 wan4 er2 qian1 wu3 bai3 er3 shi2 liu6' (this may seem very complicated, but it actually isn't; the main problem for Westerners is that 10,000 is used as a base unit)
4. 'Interior zeroes' (as in 102) have to be spelt, so 102 becomes '1' '100' '0' '2'; the reason for this is that '1' '100' '2' is used as a shorthand for '1' '100' '2' '10' -- oh, and try to avoid the use of '2' '100' '5' (i.e. 250) in conversational language; it is normally used to mean stupid
5. That's it! Easy, isn't it? Compare the Chinese way of saying '94' to the French one...

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Last edited June 26, 2001 12:26 pm (diff)
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