Chinese Audio Lesson: How to Understand Discounts in Chinese

This lesson covers how to use discounts in Chinese and includes audio you can listen to, Chinese characters and Pinyin pronunciation.

Discounts in Chinese are stated as a percentage of the original price after discount in multiples of 10, so for example a 25% discount is written as 7.5折zhé (zhé), that is, 75% of the original price.

If you ever visit a Chinese Website or take a holiday in China, you may be confused how discounting works, with signs giving a number, sometimes with a decimal point, followed by the character 折zhé. 99折zhé for example doesn’t mean a 9% discount, nor does it mean a 90% discount, what it actually means is a 10% discount. Confused? Let’s break it down.

• The character 折zhé is pronounced as “zhé” and means discount. The characters that mean “to give a discount” are actually 打dǎ折zhé (dǎzhé)
• The number that is placed in front of the 折zhé character is a percentage in multiples of 10, thus 99折zhé is referring to 90%, 88折zhé means 80% and 66折zhé means 60%

Great you say, so surely 99折zhé means there is a 90% discount? Unfortunately not. The percentage given actually refer to the price after discount, thus a 10% discount means the item on sale is 90% of the original price. The table below illustrates how this conversion works:

Chinese discount	Pinyin Pronunciation	Percentage Discount	Percentage of the original price
99折zhé	jiǔ zhé	10% discount	90%
88折zhé	bā zhé	20% discount	80%
77折zhé	qī zhé	30% discount	70%
66折zhé	liù zhé	40% discount	60%
55折zhé	wǔ zhé	50% discount	50%
44折zhé	sì zhé	60% discount	40%
33折zhé	sān zhé	70% discount	30%
22折zhé	èr zhé	80% discount	20%
11折zhé	yī zhé	90% discount	10%

Why are discounts listed with decimal points in Chinese?

For discounts with decimal point, simply ignore the decimal point and read it as the items price as a percentage of it’s original price. e.g. 77..55折zhé means the item is 75% of the original price and thus a 25% discount.

A discount which shows a decimal point works exactly the same as one with a decimal point; first you should multiply the number by ten, thus 7.5 becomes 75 and 8.5 becomes 85. This means the item on sale is the stated percentage of the original price. Continuing with the same example 77..55折zhé means the item is 75% or it’s original price, which is a 25% discount.

The table below shows example discounted prices with decimal points:

Chinese discount	Pinyin Pronunciation	Percentage Discount	Percentage of the original price
99..55折zhé	jiǔ diǎn wǔ zhé	5% discount	95%
88..55折zhé	bā diǎn wǔ zhé	15% discount	80%
77..55折zhé	qī diǎn wǔ zhé	25% discount	70%
66..55折zhé	liù diǎn wǔ zhé	35% discount	60%
55..55折zhé	wǔ diǎn wǔ zhé	45% discount	50%
44..55折zhé	sì diǎn wǔ zhé	55% discount	40%
33..55折zhé	sān diǎn wǔ zhé	65% discount	30%
22..55折zhé	èr diǎn wǔ zhé	75% discount	20%
11..55折zhé	yī diǎn wǔ zhé	85% discount	10%

What does 折起 mean?

If you see 折zhé起qǐ (zhé qǐ) this means “up to”, thus 77折zhé起qǐ ( qī zhé qǐ) means up to 30% discount (70% of the original price).

Conclusion

Summing it up, Chinese discounts are telling you the price of the item as a percentage of it’s original pre-sale price. I hope with this knowledge in hand, you should be able to avoid confusion when looking at discounts in Chinese. Please check out my posts on how to count in Chinese as well as maths vocabulary for more help.