Number is used in many aspects such as saying your phone number, your age, telling someone your birthday, or even expressing which year or population.

When learning Chinese numbers, the first step you need to know to be able to use with one 个 (gè), ten 十(shí) and after numbers that come after ten. It is not alike with English that adding “teen” to express the numbers after ten, and multiple of ten such as twenty, thirty, forty, and so on.

For example:
“Thirteen”十三 or “ten- three”
“Twenty- six” 二十六 or “two-ten-six”
“Thirty- seven” 三十七 or “three -ten- seven”
“Fourty- five”四十五 or “four- ten- five

Frequently Used Words for Numbers in Chinese

Learn 1-10 Numbers by Using Hand Gestures

Hand gestures for the number 1-10 are often used in China especially for bargaining when you go shopping, let’s find out

Dealing with large numbers

you need to know how to express large numbers in Chinese, starting hundred 百 (bǎi), thousand 千 (qiān). After a thousand follows ten thousand, 万 (wàn), a hundred thousand 十万 (shí wàn), million 百万 (bǎi wàn), ten million 千万 (qiān wàn)and a hundred million, 亿 (yì), The main difference from English is that Chinese numbers are gathered by four zeroes instead of three zeroes. Chinese order for each four zeros is 亿 (yì)/ 万 (wàn)/千 (qiān).

For example:

Twenty-five million six hundred twenty-three thousand five hundred thirty-one
Record: 25, 623, 531
Rewrite: 2562/3531 (every four figures from right to left in Chinese)
两千五百六十二万三千五百三十一

One billion two hundred twenty- eight milllion six hundred seventy five thousand six hundred thirty-one.
Record:1,228,675,631
Rewrite:12/2867/5631
十二亿二千八百六十七万五千六百三十一

If Chinese numbers are less than four zero in a group, you can use the method of zero insertion.

For example:
Two hundred billion fifty eight million six thousand thirty-one
You can write down 200,58,6,31 before zero insertion
Correction: 200,058, 006, 031
Rewrite: 2000/5800/6031
两千亿五千八百万六千零三十一

五亿零六十八万零四十三
you can write down 5/68/43 before zero insertion
Correction: 5/0068/0043
Rewrite:500,680,043
Five hundred million six hundred eighty thousand fourty-three