Chinese Numbers Part II: A Guide for Numbers Above 1000 in Mandarin

Before reading this article, make sure you finished reading Chinese Numbers Part I, for a fundamental introduction to Chinese characters for the numeral system as well as detailed guidance for numbers below 1000 in Mandarin Chinese.

Now, starting from 1000, let’s dive into Chinese numerals above and beyond.

Please note that this part is suitable for intermediate to advanced learners, as the rules get more complicated — but don’t worry, we are still applying the same set of rules as introduced in Part I, just with more combinations, longer number lengths, and there are also different situations that require careful attention to.

The Basics

First of all, 1000 is 一千, which is 1+1000, just like 一百 for 100.

So, apply the same rules as we’ve gone over in Part I, for all the thousands, we have:

一千，两千，三千，四千，五千，六千，七千，八千，九千

(1k, 2k, 3k, 4k, 5k, 6k, 7k, 8k, 9k)

Similarly, starting from ten thousand to ninety thousand, we have:

一万，两万，三万，四万，五万，六万，七万，八万，九万

(10k, 20k, 30k, 40k, 50k, 60k, 70k, 80k, 90k)

And keep applying the same format, we can also get:

一亿，两亿……九亿 (100 million to 900 million)

一兆，两兆……九兆 (1 trillion to 9 trillion)

……

Again, note that for two times a number scale (above and equal to 百, hundred), 两 is used.

Numbers up to 100,000 (十万)

Similar to numbers within hundreds, when a number has 0 inside, we need to use 零 to connect different digit places. This is true, especially for big numbers.

See examples listed in the tables below:

As we can see above, as long as there is 0 between the first digit and the last digit, 零 is used. But only ONE 零 is used for consecutive 0s inside.

However, when there is more than one 0 inside the number, but they are separated by a non-zero digit place, then there can be two 零 used. See the example of 40,302, which is 四万零三百零二 in Chinese.

Another thing we need to pay attention to is the use of 两. For 千, 万, and so on, 两 is typically used. But for 十 or the 个 (digit) place, 二 is used!

For 百, both 两 and 二 are used commonly.

Some other examples without 零 are given here as well:

As we can see here, when there are only 0s at the end, we can skip the last scale character at the end for 十、百、千 (一万二 rather than 一万两千, and 三万两千二 rather than 三万两千两百).

Also pay attention that for the examples of 一万二 (12,000) and 三万两千二 (32,200), we must use 二 at the end, rather than 两. Even though we often use 两百/千 not 二百/千, if it’s the end of a number word and the 百/千 is skipped, 二 must be used!

However, when there is 0 in between, then we can NOT skip the scale character. You can only skip it when it follows a non-zero number. See these two examples for comparison:

一万零三百, 10,300

两万零一百二(十), 20,120

See in the first example, 百 cannot be omitted, as it follows 零. Same for the second example, 百 must be included but 十 can be skipped, as the 十 place follows a non-zero 百 place.

I know all of this may seem complex, but really, we are still using the same rules as introduced for numbers below 1000.

And keep doing so, we can easily go up to 99,999: 九万九千九百九十九.

Numbers up to 10⁸ (一亿)

Let’s continue from a hundred thousand:

十万，二十万，三十万……九十万

(100,000 to 900,000)

一百万，两百万，三百万……九百万

(1 million to 9 million)

一千万，两千万，三千万……九千万

(10 million to 90 million)

Because the next number scale with a new character is 亿 (hundred million or 10⁸), before we reach there, we need to keep adding scale characters in front of 万.

Again, pay attention to the use of 两 and 二, the same rules as above are followed.

Some examples of numbers in these scales are given below:

As the numbers grow bigger, of course, the words also get longer. But if look closely, we are still applying the same set of rules for smaller numbers.

As emphasized previously, with large numbers, we need to especially pay attention to when to use 零, the use of 两 and 二, and when to skip a character.

ATTENTION: above 十万, we generally can only skip 十 and 百 at the end, anything above 千 and 万 must be written out to avoid confusion.

See the examples of 一千九百万(零)三千 (19,003,000), 两千四百七十万 (24,700,000), and 三千六百万 (36,000,000) where the ending characters of 千, 万 and 百万 are not omitted, even though these numbers end in a set of 0s.

I also want to repeat here that, for the example of 六千万(零)两千二 (60,002,200), the last character 二, stands for 200 at the end. But since we can skip the character 百 (following the non-zero 千 scale, and only 0s after), we must use 二 at the end, rather than 两. As mentioned above, if it’s the end of a number word, 二 must be used!

This is the same as the cases of 一万二 and 三万两千二 mentioned in the previous section.

Something else worth pointing out is that we say 十万, 十一万…… and 十九万 for 100k, 110k, 120k…190k, where we don’t add a 一 in front of the words.

But when they are wrapped inside a larger number, 一 must be included!

See the examples of 五百一十二万零两百零七 (5,120,207) and 四千零一十万五千三百二 (40,105,320) in the above table, pay attention to the 一 used inside these two numbers.

Numbers up to 10¹² (一兆)

Going further, nothing new is added to the rules of writing numbers in Chinese. The only thing that’s different is the number length.

First of all, 100 million, or 10⁸, is 一亿 in Chinese, which we’ve already seen above.

With this information, I’ll let you have a try with the following numbers first:

132,000,240 (hint, in Chinese numeral format: 1,3200,0240)

205,006,700 (hint: 2,0500,6700)

1,220,122,200 (hint: 12,2012,2200)

2,820,000,000 (hint: 28,2000,0000)

31,200,000,000 (hint: 312,0000,0000)

480,020,000,700 (hint: 4800,2000,0700)

Don’t scroll down and peek yet!! Try to work these out yourself first!

(You can look at this beautiful picture below for the time being.)

Ok, do you have them written down?

Now, let’s look at what they are in Chinese!

Did you get them right?

It’s ok if you didn’t, as we are reaching a large scale of billions and even hundreds of billions, things are getting more complex.

But again, nothing new is introduced here — just need to carefully apply all the existing rules.

Basically, we are adding a new number set in front of the scale of 亿 (10⁸), to make the numbers all the way up to the scale of 千亿 (10¹¹), approaching 一兆 (1 trillion, 10¹²).

To give you a better understanding of big numbers from 一亿 (10⁸) up to 一兆 (10¹²), here are some more examples.

Here, we list some very long and detailed numbers for demonstration purposes. However, in reality, when talking about large numbers on the scale of millions, billions, and even trillions, we would generally only use approximations.

For example, 三十八亿 works perfectly well than 三十八亿零两千二. There is generally no need to specify that 两千二 at the end, as they are just rounding errors compared to the entire number.

Nevertheless, it’s still useful to know how to spell out complex numbers, and doing practices like this absolutely helps improve your Chinese language skills.

Going forward from 一兆 (a trillion), we’ll still utilize all the same rules as we’ve seen so far. But since these huge scales of numbers are rarely used in our daily life, we won’t dive further.

After all, if you already made it as far as here, I’m sure you’re well capable of saying numbers in Chinese on such unimaginable scales.

Next up in this series of articles, we will go over important usages for Chinese numbers and numerals — click here for Chinese Numbers Part III!

Originally published at https://pandaist.com.