Chinese Numbers Explained
Now let's talk about money:
.
In Chinese the basic unit of money is the
(also ).
To express an amount of 元 you simply put a number in front:
= ¥2.
(¥ is the symbol for Chinese yuan, as $ is the symbol for US dollars.) You don't need a measure word after the number because
元 is the measure word. Chinese currency is also called
(RMB) which means "the people's money".
But you don't use 人民币 when talking about amounts of money, only when referring to Chinese currency in general.
There is another common word you will hear often for yuan: . Literally it means a piece or a chunk of something, and it is a common measure word for lots of things, but when you hear it used with 钱 it's like saying "a buck" in English:
| "One Buck" |
|---|
| one | piece | money |
| 一 | 块 | 钱 |
| yī | kuài | qián |
Chinese has two other units of money, the
,
which is ¥0.1, a tenth of a 元 or a "dime", and the
,
one hundredth of a 元, or a "penny".
In spoken language the 角 is often replaced with the word
.
Here are all the units:
| Chinese Units of Money |
|---|
| ¥1 | "dollar" | 元 | yuán |
| ¥1 | "dollar", slang | 块 | kuài |
| ¥0.1 | "dime", written | 角 | jiǎo |
| ¥0.1 | "dime", spoken | 毛 | máo |
| ¥0.01 | "penny" | 分 | fēn |
As is often the case with language, the formal way to express a given amount of money is quite different and longer than the ways it's typically expressed when speaking. For example, here are three different ways to say the same amount, the first being most formal and the last being probably most common:
| ¥2.50 |
|---|
| two | dollars | five | dimes |
| 两 | 元 | 五 | 角 |
| liǎng | yuán | wǔ | jiǎo |
| ¥2.50 |
|---|
| two | dollars | five | dimes |
| 两 | 块 | 五 | 毛 |
| liǎng | kuài | wǔ | máo |
| ¥2.50 |
|---|
| two | dollars | five (dimes) |
| 两 | 块 | 五 |
| liǎng | kuài | wǔ |
Note the use of 两 vs 二 here:
| ¥2.20 |
|---|
| two | dollars | two (dimes) |
| 两 | 块 | 二 |
| liǎng | kuài | èr |
Here's a more complicated amount, formally:
| ¥357.69 (formal) |
|---|
| three hundred | fifty | seven | dollars | six | dimes | nine | cents |
| 三百 | 五十 | 七 | 元 | 六 | 角 | 九 | 分 |
| sān bǎi | wŭ shí | qī | yuán | liù | jiǎo | jiŭ | fēn |
And informally:
| ¥357.69 (informal) |
|---|
| three hundred | fifty | seven | dollars | six | dimes | nine (cents) |
| 三百 | 五十 | 七 | 块 | 六 | 毛 | 九 |
| sān bǎi | wŭ shí | qī | kuài | liù | máo | jiŭ |
See also the Chinese Grammar Wiki for talking about money.
If you deal with money a lot you will notice a completely different set of characters on financial documents, such as actual paper money, the
(which means 'big writing').
The 大写 are a way of spelling numbers that prevents them from being fraudulently altered. The regular numbers are simple and easy to write, but this makes them also easy to alter with a few pen strokes. For example, two strokes will change a three 三 into a five 五, or with only one stroke you can change a one 一 into a ten 十or even a two 二 into a thousand 千!
| Financial/Banking Numbers |
|---|
| 0 | 零 | líng |
| 1 | 壹 | yī |
| 2 | 贰 | èr |
| 3 | 叁 | sān |
| 4 | 肆 | sì |
| 5 | 伍 | wŭ |
| 6 | 陆 | liù |
| 7 | 柒 | qī |
| 8 | 捌 | bā |
| 9 | 玖 | jiŭ |
| 10 | 拾 | shí |
| 100 | 佰 | bǎi |
| 103 | 仟 | qiān |
| 104 | 萬 | wàn |
| 108 | 億 | yì |
See if you can spot the 大写 characters on Chinese paper money
on this site.
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