Learning Chinese

Basics

Numbers Beyond 10

Once you know 1–10, bigger numbers are built by combining them. Only three new characters are needed:

CharacterPinyinValue
bǎi100
qiān1,000
wàn10,000

Building numbers

  • 十一 = 10 + 1 = 11 (shí yī)
  • 二十 = 2 × 10 = 20 (èr shí)
  • 二十一 = 2 × 10 + 1 = 21 (èr shí yī)
  • 五十 = 50 (wǔ shí)
  • 九十九 = 99 (jiǔ shí jiǔ)
  • 一百 = 100 (yī bǎi)
  • 三百 = 300 (sān bǎi)
  • 一千 = 1,000 (yī qiān)
  • 一万 = 10,000 (yī wàn)

Note: Mandarin has a special unit for 10,000 (). One million is 一百万 — literally "one hundred ten-thousands".

Quiz

Pick the best answer for each question. You get feedback right away.

  1. How do you write 42 in Chinese?

  2. What number is 三百?

  3. The unit 万 (wàn) is: