Numbers play a very important role in all our lives. From prices at the grocery store to the numbers on your phone, they're everywhere. Let’s learn numbers in Chinese! By the end of this article, you’ll know how to count from one to 10 in Mandarin Chinese.
Let’s look at the numbers in Pinyin and in characters. Just a small point to note: in China, numbers can written in two ways. You can use the international numbers (I.e. 1, 2, 3...) or you can use Chinese characters to write numbers. We have included both ways below.
Chinese Measure Words
Chinese measure words are an important part of Chinese grammar. If you need to count a noun, whether it’s people, houses, or some books, you are going to need a measure word. But don’t fear, they aren’t complicated. To use a measure word, just follow a simple formula:
Number + measure word + noun
Here are some examples:
Two books: 两本书 liǎng běn shū
Ten parks: 十个公园 shí gè gōngyuán
Eight teachers: 八位老师 bā wèi lǎoshī
Since measure words are classifiers, Chinese has many different measure words, and these measure words are specific to different nouns. However, instead of learning hundreds of measure words, you can always use 个 gè since it can be used for any noun. In the examples above, you can replace the measure words 本 běn and 位 wèi with 个 gè and it still works.
How to say “two” in Chinese
You’ll notice that there are two words for the number two. The difference between èr and liǎng depends on their usage. Ér is used when we want to use the number two in a phone number or date. Liǎng is used when we want to use the number two to describe the quantity of something, such as “two cats,” “two books,” or “two people.”
How to say ordinal numbers in Chinese
Saying ordinal numbers in Chinese is easy. You simply add 第 dì before the number. So, ordinal numbers first through tenth are pronounced as:
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