万 / 亿
wàn / yì
Big numbers in Chinese
Chinese groups large numbers in ten-thousands, not thousands — which is why big figures are genuinely hard to convert on the fly.
Number + 万 / 亿
How it works
五万 is 50,000. 十万 is 100,000, 一百万 is a million, 一亿 is 100 million.
English commas fall every three digits; Chinese units fall every four. 100,000 has no single English word, and 1,000,000 has no single Chinese one — hence the constant mental arithmetic.
Worth memorising the four anchors: 万 = 10⁴, 十万 = 10⁵, 百万 = 10⁶, 亿 = 10⁸.
Examples
wǔ wàn
五万
fifty thousand
zhè ge fáng zi sān bǎi wàn
这个房子三百万。
This house costs three million.
zhōng guó yǒu shí sì yì rén
中国有十四亿人。
China has 1.4 billion people.