China Club
More than
50 000
members !

Lesson 03 - Numerals

Learn Chinese, free online audio courses

Learn to count in Chinese and to write numbers from 0 to 100 000 000.

Table of Contents

Lesson 03

From 1 to 10
From 11 to 99
From 100 to 999
1000 and after
Examples
Calligraphy exercises

Easy and straightforward
The Chinese counting system is fairly easy and straightforward. There are not as many number words as in English (where the numbers zero up to twenty require twenty-one different words, plus more words for the tens, e.g. 'forty').

Basic Numbers : from 1 to 10

	Chinese	Pinyin
1	一	yī
2	二	èr
3	三	sān
4	四	sì
5	五	wǔ
6	六	liù
7	七	qī
8	八	bā
9	九	jiǔ
10	十	shí

0	零 / 〇	líng

Audio file : from 1 to 10.mp3

Annex : Numbers, complicated form

From 11 to 99

	Chinese	Pinyin	Note
11	十一	shíyī	10+1
12	十二	shí'èr	10+2
13	十三	shísān	10+3
19	十九	shíjiǔ	10+9
20	二十	èrshí	2x10
21	二十一	èrshíyī	2x10+1
22	二十二	èrshí'èr	2x10+2
30	三十	sānshí	3x10
40	四十	sìshí	4x10
90	九十	jiǔshí	9x10
99	九十九	jiǔshíjiǔ	9x10+9

Audio file : from 11 to 99.mp3

From 100 to 999

	Chinese	Pinyin
100	一百	yībǎi
101	一百零一	yībǎilíngyī
110	一百一（十）	yībǎiyī(shí)
111	一百一十一	yībǎiyīshíyī
120	一百二十	yībǎi'èrshí
200	二百	èrbǎi
999	九百九十九	jiǔbǎijiǔshǐjiǔ

Audio file : from 100 to 999.mp3

1000 and after

	Chinese	Pinyin
1 000	一千	yīqiān
1 001	一千零一	yīqiānlíngyī
1 010	一千零一十	yīqiānlíngshí
1 100	一千一百	yīqiānyībǎi
9 999	九千九百九十九	jiǔqiānjiǔbǎijiǔshíjiǔ
10 000	一万	yīwàn
1 000 000	一百万	yībǎiwàn
100 000 000	一亿	yīyì