Mandarin · 普通话 · simplified characters
Numbers in Chinese
Mandarin builds every number from eleven characters, 零 to 十, and four units: 十 ten, 百 hundred, 千 thousand and 万 ten thousand. Learn the first eleven and the five rules below, and you can read any number to a million.
Tap a character on the 1 to 10 page to hear it, or see all of them to a hundred in the 1 to 100 table.
两万三千四百五十六
liǎngwàn sānqiān sìbǎi wǔshíliù
Also correct: 二万三千四百五十六
The digits split in fours from the right: everything left of the split is counted in 万. Try 100000, 1005 or 250.
Teaching this?
A one-page 1-100 chart and a worksheet generator in characters, pinyin or both, with the answer key as its own PDF.
Chart and worksheetsThe five rules that build every number
Tens multiply, units add
A digit before 十 multiplies it and a digit after it adds: 三十 is three tens, 十三 is ten and three, 三十三 is both. From 11 to 99 there is nothing to memorise beyond 一 to 十.
13 十三 shísān · 30 三十 sānshí · 33 三十三 sānshísān · 99 九十九 jiǔshíjiǔ
十 opens a number on its own
10 to 19 start with a bare 十: 十五, not 一十五. Inside a bigger number the ten keeps its 一, so 110 is 一百一十.
15 十五 shíwǔ · 110 一百一十 yībǎi yīshí · 1,015 一千零一十五 yīqiān líng yīshíwǔ
One 零 marks a gap
Zeros inside a number are read as a single 零, however many there are. Zeros at the end are silent.
105 一百零五 yībǎi líng wǔ · 1,005 一千零五 yīqiān líng wǔ · 1,500 一千五百 yīqiān wǔbǎi · 10,050 一万零五十 yīwàn líng wǔshí
两 for a 2 that opens the number
Before 百, 千 and 万 at the start of a number, 2 is usually 两. Everywhere else it is 二, and 20 is 二十.
200 两百 liǎngbǎi · 2,000 两千 liǎngqiān · 20,000 两万 liǎngwàn · 1,200 一千二百 yīqiān èrbǎi
Count in ten-thousands
Chinese groups digits in fours. 10,000 is 一万, 100,000 is 十万 (ten 万) and a million is 一百万 (a hundred 万).
10,000 一万 yīwàn · 100,000 十万 shí wàn · 1,000,000 一百万 yībǎi wàn
Saying them: the tones
Every Mandarin syllable carries a tone, and the numbers use all four. 一 yī, 三 sān, 七 qī and 八 bā are high and level; 十 shí and 零 líng rise; 五 wǔ and 九 jiǔ dip; 二 èr, 四 sì and 六 liù fall. Four and ten, sì and shí, differ in both the consonant and the tone, and a tongue twister exists just to drill them: 四是四，十是十 .
The tones page covers the tone contours, the two tone changes that touch numbers (一 and a pair of third tones) and why this site writes yī in the pinyin even where speakers say yì.
Chinese numbers, Mandarin numbers, Chinese numerals
Search tools treat the three phrases as one search, and most people typing them want the same thing: how to say and write numbers in Mandarin. This site answers that. Two neighbouring topics have pages of their own so they do not crowd the counting: the older numeral systems (counting rods, Suzhou price numerals, the anti-fraud characters on cheques) on Chinese numerals, and the meanings people attach to numbers (8 for wealth, 4 for death, 520 for "I love you") on lucky and unlucky numbers and number slang.
Questions from learners and teachers
How do you count to ten in Chinese?
yī, èr, sān, sì, wǔ, liù, qī, bā, jiǔ, shí: 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十. The pinyin marks show the tones, which are part of each word: sì (four) falls and shí (ten) rises, and mixing them up is the classic beginner mistake. Zero is 零 líng.
Are Mandarin numbers and Chinese numbers the same thing?
On this site, yes. Mandarin is the standard spoken language of mainland China, where it is called Putonghua (普通话), and of Taiwan; the numbers here are its numbers, written in the simplified characters used in mainland China and Singapore. Cantonese and other varieties write numbers with the same characters but pronounce them differently, so the pinyin and tones on this site are Mandarin only.
How do you write 100 in Chinese?
一百 (yībǎi). Unlike 10, which is a bare 十, a hundred keeps its 一. 101 is 一百零一, with 零 marking the empty tens place, and 110 is 一百一十.
What does 万 mean?
万 (wàn) is ten thousand, and it is the unit large Chinese numbers are counted in. 50,000 is 五万 (five ten-thousands), 100,000 is 十万 and 1,000,000 is 一百万. The next unit up is 亿 (yì), a hundred million.
Is "Chinese numerals" a different topic?
Sometimes. People searching "Chinese numerals" usually want the number words on this page, but the phrase also covers older systems: counting-rod numerals, the Suzhou numerals once used on market price tags, and the formal characters 壹, 贰, 叁 written on cheques. Those have their own page.