How to count in Chinese

Counting in Chinese is relatively easy being a decimal counting system. This means Chinese has the numbers for 0 – 9, ten, hundred, etc. In Chinese you can write numbers as numerals as we do in English, that is 0,1,2,3,etc., or you in words, the equivalent of zero, one, two, three, etc. Whichever way you write the character the pronunciation is the same.

Number in Numerals	English	Chinese	Pinyin
0	zero	零líng	líng
1	one	一yī	yī
2	two	二èr	èr
3	three	三sān	sān
4	four	四sì	sì
5	five	五wǔ	wǔ
6	six	六liù	liù
7	seven	七qī	qī
8	eight	八bā	bā
9	nine	九jiǔ	jiǔ
10	ten	十shí	shí
100	hundred	百bǎi	bǎi
1,000	thousand	千qiān	qiān
10,000	ten thousand	万wàn	wàn
100,000,000	hundred million	亿yì	yì

As you can see from the table above, Chinese numbers follow the same tens, hundreds, thousands logic as we use in English. Where things are different is that Chinese has a unit for ten thousand, pronounced “wàn” (九jiǔ), and a unit for one hundred million pronounced “yì” (亿yì).

The table below shows how you use the Chinese ten thousand and one hundred million characters.

Number in Numerals	English	Chinese	Pinyin
1	one	一yī	yī
10	ten	十shí	shí
100	one hundred	一yī百bǎi	yībǎi
1,000	one thousand	一yī千qiān	yīqiān
10,000	ten thousand	万wàn	wàn
100,000	one hundred thousand	十shí万wàn	shí wàn
1,000,000	one million	一yī百bǎi万wàn	yībǎi wàn
10,000,000	ten million	一yī千qiān万wàn	yīqiān wàn
100,000,000	100 million	一yī亿yì	yì
1,000,000,000	one billion	十shí亿yì	shí yì

As you can hopefully see from the table above, the way counting in Chinese works starts of the same as in English all the way up to 9,999. For example 1,000 is literally “one (“yī”) thousand (“qiān”), that is “yīqiān” (一yī千qiān).

Ten thousand instead of writing it as “ten” and “thousand”, there is the special character that represents this number, so it is simply “one” and “ten thousand”, that is “wàn” (万wàn).

One hundred thousand again uses “wàn” (万wàn), thus instead of being “one hundred” and “thousand” it is instead “ten” “ten thousands”, that is “shí wàn” (十shí万wàn).

One million becomes “one hundred ten thousands”, that is “yībǎi wàn” (一yī百bǎi万wàn).

Ten million becomes “one thousand ten thousands”. that is “yīqiān wàn” (一yī千qiān万wàn).

One hundred million is a number called a “yì” (亿yì), so you write it as literally “one one-hundred-million”, that is “yī yì” (一yī亿yì). Having a number character to represent 100 million follows the same logic as in English having a word for million rather than saying “one thousand thousand”.

It is important to understand that, like English, it is normal to write any number as numerals and certainly not normal to write out a large number with Chinese characters. The below table is to illustrate the pronunciation of numbers in Chinese, but does mean that it is normal to write these numbers out in Chinese characters.

Number	Chinese	Pinyin
7	七qī	qī
47	四sì十shí七qī	sìshí qī
107	一yī百bǎi零líng七qī	yībǎi líng qī
547	五wǔ百bǎi四sì十shí七qī	wǔbǎi sì shí qī
2,547	二èr千qiān五wǔ百bǎi四sì十shí七qī	èrqiān wǔbǎi sì shí qī
10,547	一yī万wàn五wǔ百bǎi四sì十shí七qī	yī wàn wǔbǎi sì shí qī
30,547	三sān万wàn五wǔ千qiān四sì百bǎi七qī十shí	sān wàn wǔqiān sìbǎi qī shí
32,547	三sān十shí二'èr点diǎn五wǔ百bǎi四sì十shí七qī	sānshí’èr diǎn wǔbǎi sì shí qī
232,547	二èr十shí三sān万wàn二èr千qiān五wǔ百bǎi四sì十shí七qī	èrshísān wàn èrqiān wǔbǎi sì shí qī
1,000,000	一yī百bǎi万wàn	yī bǎi wàn
6,000,000	六liù百bǎi万wàn	liùbǎi wàn
6,000,000,047	六liù百bǎi万wàn和hé四sì十shí七qī	liùbǎi wàn hé sì shí qī
6,232,547	六liù百bǎi二èr十shí三sān万wàn二èr千qiān五wǔ百bǎi四sì十shí七qī	liùbǎi èr shí sān wàn èr qiān wǔbǎi sì shí qī
90,000,000	九jiǔ千qiān万wàn	jiǔ qiān wàn
100,000,000	一yī百bǎi万wàn	yī bǎi wàn
1,000,000,000	十shí亿yì	shí yì
1,006,232,547	十shí亿yì六liù百bǎi万wàn二èr百bǎi三sān十shí二èr数shù千qiān五wǔ百bǎi四sì十shí	shí yì

Do Chinese speakers get confused when counting in English?

Given that English counting is based on thousands, that is a million be a thousand thousand and a billion being a thousand thousand thousand, it is not uncommon to hear a native Chinese speaker accidentally translate a number in to English incorrectly. Normally a native Chinese speaker would correct their English mistranslation immediately, however I have seen cases where confusion resulted in a number being translated incorrectly.

Equally, a native English speaker can easily get confused when saying large numbers in Chinese. If you are dealling with large numbers in Chinese and are not used to it you will find yourself pausing and thinking before you say the number – remembering that one million in Chinese is one hundred ten thousands.

How to pronounce decimal points in Chinese

The character for “point” in Chinese is 点diǎn, pronounced “diǎn”. 点diǎn is used in maths, thus if you wanted to write 3.7 in Chinese characters, that is the equivalent of writing it as “three point seven” in English, the Chinese is 三sān点diǎn七qī and accordingly pronounced as “sān diǎn qī”.

If you wanted to say “decimal point” in full, this is written as 小xiǎo数shù点diǎn, pronounced as “xiǎoshùdiǎn”. So you could for example tell someone they forgot the decimal point e.g.

ssttrroonngg>>你nǐ忘wàng了le小xiǎo数shù点diǎn了le//ssttrroonngg>>
nǐ wàngle xiǎoshùdiǎnle

You forgot the decimal point

Conclusion

Wrapping it up, if you are new to Chinese or are travelling to China, it is useful to know the numbers from zero to one hundred, or at a minimum one to five. If you are ever in the situation where you are buying something for one “yì”, that is 100 million, I’m sure the seller will find a translator to help bridge the divide.