数字
shù zì
Structure of numbers
Chinese numbers are built transparently out of the digits and the place words — eleven is literally "ten one".
Number + Unit (十 / 百 / 千 / 万)
How it works
One to ten are 一二三四五六七八九十. From there you compose: 十一 (11), 二十 (20), 二十一 (21), 一百 (100), 三百五十九 (359).
Two things trip people up. Zero is spoken as 零 inside a number when a place is skipped: 一百零五 is 105. And once you cross ten thousand, Chinese counts in 万 (10,000), not thousands — 100,000 is 十万, ten 万.
Examples
sān bǎi wǔ shí jiǔ
三百五十九
359
yì bǎi líng wǔ
一百零五
105
wǒ yǒu èr shí kuài qián
我有二十块钱。
I have twenty kuai.
Common mistakes
- 二 vs 两: use 两 before a measure word (两个人), 二 when counting or in a bigger number (二十二).