Chinese numbers: counting from 1 to 100 and beyond

Chinese numbers 1 to 10 are yī, èr, sān, sì, wǔ, liù, qī, bā, jiǔ, shí. Everything from 11 to 99 is those same ten words recombined, so there's no second set of vocabulary to learn. The pattern only changes shape at 100, and again at 10,000.

Chinese numbers 1 to 10

Digit	Character	Pinyin	Tone
1	一	yī	1st
2	二	èr	4th
3	三	sān	1st
4	四	sì	4th
5	五	wǔ	3rd
6	六	liù	4th
7	七	qī	1st
8	八	bā	1st
9	九	jiǔ	3rd
10	十	shí	2nd

Zero is líng (零), written 〇 in dates and on some price displays.

One caution on 一: its tone shifts with what follows. First tone alone or at the end of a number, second tone (yí) before a fourth-tone syllable — yíwàn, 10,000 — and fourth tone (yì) before everything else: yìbǎi, yìqiān. It's a small shift, and part of the wider pattern covered in Chinese tones. If tone marks are new to you, work through a pinyin chart first.

How Chinese counting builds 11 to 99

There is no "eleven," no "twelve," no "twenty." Chinese counting stacks the ten words you already have around shí.

• A digit before shí multiplies: èrshí = two-ten = 20, sānshí = 30, jiǔshí = 90.
• A digit after shí adds: èrshíwǔ = two-ten-five = 25.
• Shí with nothing in front gives the teens: shíyī = 11, shí'èr = ten-two = 12, shíjiǔ = 19.

That runs cleanly to 99 — jiǔshíjiǔ. The teens take no leading yī: 15 is shíwǔ, not yīshíwǔ.

Chinese numbers 1 to 100 and where the pattern breaks

At 100 the shortcut stops. Bǎi (百) can't stand alone the way shí can, so 100 is yìbǎi, never just bǎi. Same for qiān (千, 1,000) and wàn (万, 10,000): each needs its multiplier.

Zeros inside a number get a spoken placeholder, líng, used once no matter how many zeros it covers:

• 101 = yìbǎi líng yī
• 1,005 = yìqiān líng wǔ
• 1,050 = yìqiān líng wǔshí

When the gap is in the tens slot right after bǎi, you say the ten: 110 is yìbǎi yīshí, often shortened to yìbǎi yī in speech.

The wàn unit that breaks English speakers

English groups digits in threes — thousand, million, billion. Chinese groups them in fours. Ten thousand is not "ten thousands," it's one wàn, its own unit, and the whole system rebuilds from there:

• 10,000 = yíwàn
• 100,000 = shíwàn (ten wàn)
• 1,000,000 = yìbǎi wàn (one hundred wàn)
• 100,000,000 = yíyì (亿)

This is the part that costs money. Apartments, cars, and salaries are quoted in wàn, so a listing at 300万 is 3,000,000 yuan, not 300,000. Don't translate it word for word — just add four zeros.

liǎng or èr: which "two" to use

Two has two forms, and the choice isn't optional.

Èr (二) is the counting form — reciting numbers, digits in a phone number or address, and inside compound numbers: èrshí'èr for 22.

Liǎng (两) is what you use before a measure word, which means it's the form you'll actually say when buying things: liǎng gè (two of them), liǎng bēi (two cups), liǎng tiān (two days). Liǎng also fronts the big units: liǎngqiān (2,000) and liǎngwàn (20,000) are standard, and 200 goes either way — liǎngbǎi and èrbǎi are both standard, with no fixed rule for which one a given speaker reaches for. What never happens is liǎngshí. Twenty is èrshí, always.

One more you'll hear before you understand it: èrbǎiwǔ (250) is well-known slang for a fool, so it lands as an insult before it lands as a number if you use it carelessly.

Chinese hand signs for numbers on one hand

Markets are loud and dialects vary, so prices get settled by hand. One through five are what you'd expect — fingers extended, index finger for one. Six through ten are one-handed signs with no Western equivalent:

• 6 — thumb and pinky out, other fingers folded, like a phone held to the ear.
• 7 — thumb, index, and middle finger pinched together at the tips, pointing up.
• 8 — thumb and index extended at a right angle, like an L.
• 9 — index finger curled into a hook.
• 10 — a closed fist, or the two index fingers crossed to make the shape of 十.

Signs for 7 and 10 vary by region; a vendor may switch to crossed fingers for ten if a fist confuses you. Mirror whichever version you're shown.

Gestures settle the digits, but they can't ask the question. Having the numbers and a line like "duōshao qián?" stored offline in Chinese Phrasebook, a Chinese phrasebook app for iPhone, beats miming when the answer comes back in wàn.

Chinese days of the week are numbered too

Once you have 1 through 7, you have the calendar. Xīngqī (星期) plus a number gives the day:

• Monday = xīngqīyī (week-one)
• Tuesday = xīngqī'èr
• Wednesday = xīngqīsān
• Thursday = xīngqīsì
• Friday = xīngqīwǔ
• Saturday = xīngqīliù
• Sunday = xīngqītiān or xīngqīrì — never xīngqīqī

Zhōu (周) works the same way and dominates writing and schedules: zhōuyī, zhōu'èr, zhōumò for the weekend. Lǐbài (礼拜) is the colloquial version, especially common in Taiwan and Cantonese-speaking areas. Months are just as mechanical — yīyuè is January, shí'èryuè December.

Prices, phone numbers, and dates as they're actually spoken

Prices. Written currency is yuán (元); spoken, it's kuài (块). The tenth is jiǎo written, máo (毛) spoken. So ¥15.50 is shíwǔ kuài wǔ, with the final máo usually dropped. Ask with "duōshao qián?" — one of the phrases worth memorizing before a market run.

Phone numbers. Read digit by digit, never grouped. The one exception matters: 1 is read yāo (幺) rather than yī, because yī and qī blur over a bad connection. Mainland mobile numbers run 11 digits.

Dates. Big unit to small: year, month, day. Years are read as loose digits, so 2026 is èr líng èr liù, not "two thousand twenty-six." The day takes hào (号) in speech and rì (日) in writing — bā yuè bā hào for August 8.

Numbers also carry superstition. Sì (four) sounds close to sǐ (death) and gets avoided in floor numbers and license plates; bā (eight) echoes fā, as in getting rich, and turns up in phone numbers people pay extra for.

FAQ

How to count in Chinese from 1 to 10?

Yī (1), èr (2), sān (3), sì (4), wǔ (5), liù (6), qī (7), bā (8), jiǔ (9), shí (10). Drill them with tones from the start — sì (4) and shí (10) differ by a retroflex initial and a tone, and confusing them at a market is expensive.

Do I have to memorize Chinese numbers 1 to 100 one by one?

No. Learn 1 through 10 and the ten-based rule, and everything up to a hundred builds itself: sìshíqī is four-ten-seven, 47. The only things to memorize separately are yìbǎi for 100 and the líng placeholder for internal zeros.

Why is 10,000 its own word in Chinese?

Chinese groups large numbers in blocks of four digits rather than three, so wàn (10,000) is a base unit the way "thousand" is in English. A million is yìbǎi wàn — one hundred wàn. Prices for apartments and cars are quoted in wàn, so the conversion is worth automating.

What are the Chinese hand signs for numbers above five?

Six through ten each have a one-handed sign: thumb-and-pinky for 6, three pinched fingertips for 7, an L shape for 8, a hooked index finger for 9, and a fist or crossed index fingers for 10. The 7 and 10 signs vary regionally, so treat what the vendor shows you as the local standard.

Are Mandarin numbers the same in Cantonese?

The characters are identical, the pronunciation isn't. Cantonese counts yat, yi, saam, sei, ng, luk, cat, baat, gau, sap. The grammar of the system — the ten-based combining, the wàn unit — works the same way, so Mandarin numbers transfer structurally even where the sounds don't.