Chinese Numbers: The Complete Guide to Numbers in Mandarin

How to Use Chinese Numbers

You’ve learned the Chinese numbers (great!), but how do you use them? After all, there are many instances where we use numbers in our day-to-day life. Things like time, the date, our age, price, etc.

So here are some examples to help you get started:

To Give Your Phone Number

If you know the numbers 0-9, saying your phone number in Chinese couldn’t be easier, all you have to do is read out each digit one by one.

Let’s give it a shot.

87360294

This is how you would say this number in Chinese: bā qī sān liù líng èr jiǔ sì.

Now, in English, when numbers appear consecutively, we normally say double or triple.

For instance,

• 53782229
  five three seven eight, triple two nine

In Chinese, however, you always read out each number: wǔ sān qī bā èr èr èr jiǔ.

All clear?

Just one thing to note:

When there is a one (1) in the phone number, native speakers often pronounce it “yāo” instead of “yī” to make the sound more distinguishable.

Doubt so? Try saying a few 1 in a row (e.g. 111, 1111, 11111) fast with the “yī” pronunciation, then test it out with “yāo”, and you’ll agree with me!  

Besides, in a noisy environment or over the phone, yī (1) can easily get mixed up with another number qī (7) due to their same vowel ending – another reason why you might want to switch to “yāo”!

Let’s give it a try!

• 83146110
  bā sān yāo sì liù yāo yāo líng

Now, to ask for someone’s phone number in Chinese, you can say

• 你的电话号码是多少？
  Nǐ de diànhuà hàomǎ shì duōshǎo?
  What’s your phone number?
  Literally, “Your phone numbers are what numbers?”

And to give your phone number, you can start with

• 我的电话号码是…
  Wǒ de diànhuà hàomǎ shì…
  My phone number is…

Keywords

Character	Pinyin	English
电话	diànhuà	phone
号码	hàomǎ	number
多少	duōshǎo	question word for number

To Talk About Your Age

Once you know the numbers, talking about age in Chinese will be a piece of cake.

You only need to learn two more words here.

Keywords

Character	Pinyin	English
岁	suì	years of age
几	jǐ	question word for small number

To tell people your age, simply add a 岁 (suì) behind the number.  

For example,

• 我三十岁。
  Wǒ sān shí suì.
  I am thirty years old.  
  Literally, “I, thirty years old.”

See? You don’t even need a verb here.

To ask someone how old he or she is, you can say

• 你多少岁？
  Nǐ duōshǎo suì?
  How old are you?
  Literally, “You, what number years old?”

And if you’re asking a kid:

• 你几岁？
  Nǐ jǐ suì?
  How old are you?
  Literally, “You, what number years old?”

You can use both questions words – 几 (jǐ) and 多少 (duōshǎo) to ask a specific number. But when you expect the number in the answer to be big, it’s more proper to use 多少 (duōshǎo).

You can follow our complete guide here to learn the various ways of telling and asking age in Chinese.

To Say Dates

With all the different names of months and days to remember, dates are something many people struggle with when learning languages. But Mandarin Chinese can be easy – once you know the basic numbers, you can pretty much say any time element in Chinese.

Before learning about dates in Chinese, here’s some key vocab:

Character	Pinyin	English
年	nián	year
月	yuè	month
日	rì	date (formal)
号	hào	date (colloquial)

Now, let’s learn how to say the dates in Chinese:

1. Start with the number of the year

When saying the date in English, you start with the month (U.S.) or the day (U.K). In Chinese, however, the elements of the date must be named in ascending order: year + month + day, that is, 年 (nián) + 月 (yuè) + 日 (rì).

The Chinese numeral dates are always written like this: YYYY/MM/DD.

For example:

• 2021/12/31

To express the year correctly, you need to read out each digit of the number corresponding to the year, just like the way you say your phone number, and then add 年 (nián) to it.

• 2021
  二零二一年
  èr líng èr yī nián
  year 2021
  Literally, “two zero two one year”

If you are not yet comfortable with saying a string of numbers in Chinese, you can just say the last two digits instead of the whole number, like:

• 二一年
  èr yī nián
  year 2021 
  Literally, “two one year”

Obviously, the two digits 21 can refer to 1921 or 1821 as well, but as long as the context is clear, people would have no problem understanding the shortened version. (Don’t get it mixed up with 二十一年 èr shí yī nián which means “twenty-one years”!)

2. Say the month

After saying the year, you’ll then say the month of the year. The best part is that you don’t need to learn a new set of words for the months. In Chinese, they are expressed by a simple combination of the numbers 1-12 and the word 月 (yuè) – month.

Thus, January is 一月 (yī yuè) – the first month, February is 二月 (èr yuè) – the second month, and December is, you guessed it, 十二月 (shí èr yuè) – the twelfth month!

3. Say the date

Finally, you need to conclude it with a specific date of the month. Just as when you say the months in Chinese, when you say the date in Chinese, you also use the cardinal numbers (such as “one” or “two”) instead of ordinals (such as “first” or “second”).

The pattern is the same. After you say the number, add the word 日 (rì) – date.

For example,

• 31st (of the month)
  三十一日
  Literally, “31 date”

Now, let’s go back to the date 2021/12/31 and see if you can work it all out in Chinese.

Answer:

• 二零二一年十二月三十一日
  èr líng èr yī nián shí èr yuè sān shí yī rì
  Literally: “two zero two one year, December (twelfth month), thirty-first date”

Or if you prefer the short version:

• 二一年十二月三十一日
  èr yī nián shí èr yuè sān shí yī rì
  Literally: “two one year, December (twelfth month), thirty-first date”.

Easy, isn’t it?

Just one note: in casual conversations, many people use 号 (hào), a more colloquial version of 日 (rì) to express the date of the month. It works the same way.

• 二一年十二月三十一号
  èr yī nián shí èr yuè sān shí yī hào
  Literally: “two one year, December (twelfth month), thirty-first date”.

When someone asks you the date in Chinese, you can start by saying 今天是 (jīntiān shì) – meaning “today is” before the date.

For example, when someone asked you “今天几号 (jīntiān jǐ hào) – what’s the date today?”, you could say,

• 今天是六月十八日(号)。
  Jīntiān shì liù yuè shí bā rì (hào).
  Today is June the 18th.

In most contexts, it’s acceptable to simply say the date.

You can also combine Chinese numbers with the word “week” to talk about the days of the week in Chinese. If you don’t know how, read our detailed guide here to learn the vocabulary related to days and weeks in Chinese.

To Tell the Time

Telling the time in Chinese is a lot like in English, you say the number that corresponds to the hour first, then the minute.

The key difference here is that in Chinese, you must use an additional word 点 (diǎn), meaning “o’clock” in the middle to separate the hour and the minute.

For example,

• 9:40
  九点四十
  jiǔ diǎn sì shí
  Literally, “nine o’clock forty”

And when the minute is under 10, you have to read out the zero (you can think of it as the “o” in English”)

• 9:05
  九点零五
  jiǔ diǎn líng wǔ
  Literally, “nine o’clock o five”

In English, we often leave out the word “o’clock” for time on the hour. In Chinese, however, you need to keep it around the clock.

Take 9:00 for example,

• √ 九点 (jiǔ diǎn)
  Literally, “nine o’clock”
  
  × 九 (jiǔ)
  numeral “9” (having nothing to do with time)

Note that China, like America, uses the 12-hour-system. 19:00 is thus 7:00 clock (p.m). That’s why additional words like 上午 (shàngwǔ) – morning, 下午 (xiàwǔ) – afternoon, and 晚上 (wǎnshang) – evening are used in situations where it is necessary to point out the specific periods of the day.

Unlike the a.m. and p.m. in English, however, you must say these Chinese time words before the time following the “broad to specific” rule.

Examples:

• 3:00 pm
  下午三点
  xiàwǔ sān diǎn
  Literally: “afternoon three o’clock” 

• 9:30 pm
  晚上九点三十
  wǎnshàng jiǔ diǎn sān shí
  Literally: “evening nine o’clock thirty” 

Because there is neither verb conjugation nor tense in Chinese, native speakers often include a time word like “now”, “today” at the beginning of a sentence to make the context clearer. When they ask you the time in Chinese, they would say “Now, what time?” – 现在几点 (xiànzài jǐ diǎn)?

To answer that question, follow the same pattern: start with 现在 (xiànzài), which means now, and then follow it up with the time, like: 

• 现在七点二十八。
  Xiànzài qī diǎn èr shí bā.
  Now (it’s) 7:28.

(Wanna know more about Chinese time? Read our full guide to telling the time in Chinese.)

To Say Prices in Shopping

Now, let’s learn how to say the Chinese numbers in prices.

The prices are expressed quite differently in Chinese than in English. To start with, the basic unit or counter of the Chinese currency is Yuan. The official symbol for the Chinese Yuan is ¥. However, in most stores and restaurants in China, you’ll find the symbol represented by the Chinese character 元, which is pronounced yuán.

A Yuan can be further divided into 角 (jiǎo) – 1/10 of a Yuan (like the dime in a dollar), and 分 (fēn) -1/100 of a Yuan (think the cent in a dollar), although the latter is so small a unit that you rarely see it in daily life.

To say the prices in Chinese, you have to indicate the unit of the currency after the number.

For example,

• ¥1.00
  一元
  yì yuán
  one Yuan

• ¥0.50
  五角
  wǔ jiǎo
  five Jiao

• ¥1.50
  一元五角
  yì yuán wǔ jiǎo
  one Yuan, five Jiao

If more than one currency unit is included in a price, then the smallest unit can be omitted in spoken Chinese. For example, to express ¥1.50, you can drop the smallest unit – in this case “Jiao”, and just say 一元五 (yì yuán wǔ) – one Yuan, five.

Let’s try this.

• ¥19.80
  十九元八(角)
  shí jiǔ yuán bā (jiǎo)
  nineteen Yuan, eight (Jiao)
  Jiao, being the smallest currency unit in this price, can be omitted

• ¥19.89
  十九元八角九(分)
  shí jiǔ yuán bā jiǎo jiǔ (fēn)
  nineteen Yuan, eight Jiao, nine (Fen)
  Fen, being the smallest currency unit in this price, can be omitted

Did you get it?

Now, when shopping in China, a storekeeper might also express prices in terms of 块 (kuài), which is the colloquial version of 元 (yuán) and is similar to how Americans use “bucks” to mean dollars.

Similarly, another colloquial word 毛 (máo) is widely used in daily life to mean “dime”. Both 毛 (máo) and 角 (jiǎo) refer to the same thing: 1/10 of a Yuan.

Now let’s try saying these prices using the colloquial set.

• ¥1.00
  一块
  yí kuài
  one Kuai

• ¥0.50
  五毛
  wǔ máo
  five Mao

• ¥1.50
  一块五毛
  yí kuài wǔ máo
  one Kuai, five Mao

Or if you prefer the short version:

• ¥1.50
  一块五
  yí kuài wǔ
  one Kuai, five

To Express “half of…” and “…and a half”

Like in English, Chinese speakers use the number word 半 (bàn), which means “half” a lot in their daily lives, referring to 50% of something.

How to Say “half of…” in Chinese

Below are a few examples demonstrating how “half of something” is said in Chinese.

• half a cake
  半个蛋糕
  bàn gè dàn gāo

• half a chicken
  半只鸡
  bàn zhī jī

• half a book
  半本书
  bàn běn shū

• half a day
  半天
  bàn tiān

• half a year
  半年
  bàn nián

I hope you can see the pattern here:  

To say “half of something” in Chinese, say the word 半 (bàn) first, then the counter corresponding to that thing. (Words like 天 tiān – day, and 年 nián – year are essentially time dividers, therefore, can be used as counter words on their own)

But why there’s a counter here? You asked.

The answer is simple: 半 (bàn) is usually conceived as a number in Chinese (think 0.5 or 50%). And as long as a number comes along with a noun, you must add a counter in between!

If you simply want to say “a half” with no intention to specify the object, it’s possible – but you’ll need to say 一半 (yíbàn). For example, if someone asked you “你要多少? (nǐ yào duōshǎo) – how many would you like?”, you could answer: 一半 (yíbàn)!

How to Say “… and a half” in Chinese

You can also use the word 半 (bàn) to express “… and a half”. The tip is that you put the 半 (bàn) after the counter.

How does this work? Let’s look at some examples.

• 一个半蛋糕
  yí gè bàn dàngāo
  one and a half cakes (1.5 cakes)

• 两瓶半啤酒
  liǎng píng bàn píjiǔ
  two and a half bottles of beer (2.5 bottles of beer)

• 三天半
  sān tiān bàn
  three and a half days (3.5 days)

• 四年半
  sì nián bàn
  four and a half years (4.5 years)

Note that in English, we sometimes use “and a half” to abbreviate the names of big numbers. For instance, instead of saying “one thousand five hundred, we might say “one and a half thousand”. And instead of “two million five hundred thousand”, we might say “two and a half million”.

However, you can’t do it like this in Chinese. Essentially, 半 (bàn) can only be used to express small decimal numbers (0.5, 1.5, 2.5, etc). You can’t use it to express big numbers with a comma (thousands separator). For those numbers, you’ll need to read out their full names.

• 1,500
  一千五百
  yì qiān wǔ bǎi
  one thousand, five hundred

• 2,500,000
  二百五十万
  èr bǎi wǔ shí wàn
  two hundred fifty “wan”

To Do Basic Math

I think you’ll agree with me when I say that the simplicity and consistency of Chinese number words make calculations a lot easier in this language (and that probably explains why Chinese students are so good at math, right?)

Now you know all the numbers in Chinese, you can do math fast too!

How to Calculate in Chinese

Before learning about calculation, let’s learn the key math vocabulary in Chinese:

Character	Pinyin	English
加	jiā	…plus…
减	jiǎn	…minus…
乘	chéng	…times…
除以	chú yǐ	…divided by…
等于	děngyú	…equals…

And here’s a list of examples showing you how to use Chinese numbers and calculation words to do basic math.

• 1+2=3
  一加二等于三
  yī jiā èr děngyú sān
  One plus two equals three.

• 7-3=4
  七减三等于四
  qī jiǎn sān děngyú sì
  Seven minus three equals five.

• 5×6=30
  五乘六等于三十
  wǔ chéng liù děngyú sān shí
  Five times six equals thirty.

• 72÷9=8
  七十二除以九等于八
  qī shí èr chú yǐ jiǔ děngyú bā
  Seventy-two divided by nine equals eight.

A good way to practice your Chinese number skills is to work on the Chinese multiplication table with the rhythmic chant. Read here to learn how.

Decimal Numbers in Chinese

In Chinese, the decimal point is called 点 and pronounced “diǎn”.

When you say a decimal in Chinese, you need to read out each individual number after the 点 (diǎn).

For example:

• 3.25
  三点二五
  sān diǎn èr wǔ
  Literally, “three point two five”

Don’t get it mixed up with time expressions in Chinese! Though the colon there (:) is also read as 点 (diǎn), the numbers are recited differently in time. For example, if it’s 3:25 now, you wouldn’t say “三点二五 (sān diǎn èr wǔ)”. Instead, you would say “三点二十五 (sān diǎn èr shí wǔ)”.

Fractions in Chinese

In Chinese, fractions are written with the same dividing line just like in English (e.g. 1/4). The difference is that you must read the denominator (bottom number) first, then the dividing line – 分之 (fēnzhī), and last the numerator (top number).

For example:

• 1/4
  四分之一
  sì fēnzhī yī

• 2/5
  五分之二
  wǔ fēnzhī èr

Percentages in Chinese

If you can say fractions, you can say percentages in Chinese too!

The Chinese percentage sign is written the same as in English: %. When reading a percentage, you simply say the word “百分之 (bǎi fēnzhī wǔ shí)” first and the number after it. So 50% would be read as “百分之五十 (bǎi fēnzhī wǔ shí)”.

If you think about it, the Chinese readings for fractions and percentages follow the same pattern. The reading for 25% is pretty much the same as 25/100. You just have to shorten 一百 (yì bǎi) – the denominator in the fraction to 百 (bǎi) in the percentage.