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There are many things that are complicated about Mandarin Chinese, but counting isn’t one of them. Unlike the counting system in English, the system in Chinese is both consistent and common sense. So without further blabbering, I’ll show you how to count in Chinese. However, before I do, recap how to say all these numbers in Chinese:

1, 2, 3 … 10
100
1000
10 000

Finished? Great! Let’s begin.

From 1 to 10

For numbers one to ten, simply say the number (and don’t forget to use the word for ‘pair’ instead of two when referring to things). Logical, of course.

Numbers 11 to 99

For numbers between ten and one hundred, simply say how many tens, followed by how many ones. A few examples will clarify this perfectly:

15 in Chinese is ‘ten five’.

37 is worded ‘three ten seven’.

80 is simply ‘eight ten’, and so on.

100 and up

You’ll be pleased to know that the simplicity we just encountered doesn’t stop at a hundred. A number such 8314 translates easily to ‘eight thousand three hundred ten four’. Nothing could be simpler! However, don’t forget that Mandarin has a special word for ‘ten thousand’, so for numbers greater than 9999 make sure to count in units of 10000. To clarify, for a number such as 58000, don’t say ‘five ten eight thousand’, but rather ‘five ten-thousand eight thousand’. This system goes all the way up to and beyond a million (which incidentally, is ‘one hundred ten-thousand’). I hope this makes as much sense to you as it did to me when I was first exposed to it!

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In English we have as special word for a group of two things - pair. A similar concept applies to Mandarin Chinese, with a few major differences. While only things that are intrinsically in twos are referred to as ‘a pair’ in English, in Chinese any two items are referred to as a pair. In fact the word for two is rarely used, except when counting or referring to individual digits as you would when reading a phone number.

Next, we’ll be learning how to combine digits into real world numbers. You’ll move from saying ‘four zero three two’, to ‘four thousand and thirty two’.

Happy Good Friday to you!

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As I alluded to in my post on the character for ‘hundred’ two days ago, Chinese has special characters for various powers of ten. We’ve seen ten, hundred and thousand, and now it’s time for the big brother: ten thousand. While English combines two separate words to represent the number 10000, Mandarin Chinese uses a single special character pronounced ‘oo-an’, which sounds almost identical to the English word ‘won’. Instead of saying “That scooter is thirty thousand dollars”, Mandarin speakers will say “That scooter is three ten thousand dollars”. This can be quite confusing for foreigners, constantly requiring mental arithmetic to translate the ‘ten thousands’ into ‘thousands’. If in doubt, write it out - you wouldn’t want to sign a rental agreement for 50000 dollars a month when you only intended to pay 5000!

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Like any language, Chinese has its idiosyncrasies. Why would a number like zero require 13 strokes to write, while thousand requires just three? No idea… Please enlighten me if you know!

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While Westerners use zeros to represent powers of ten, traditional Chinese has special characters for various powers. Over the next days we’ll be looking a few of these. Today we start with the character for ‘hundred’. I think you’ll breath a sigh of relief when you see how easy it is to write and say.

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Dear reader(s).
I noticed today that I have omitted the stroke order on this first set of flashcards. Unfortunately, I don’t have time to correct them, so you’ll need to refer to this blog if you wish to see the stroke order. I’ll make sure to include them in the next set of cards.

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If you’ve been following along and have made your own flashcards, you’ll have noticed that there are two cards for each character. While it may seem redundant, this arrangement actually allows for a number of memory games. Below, I’ll explain five that I have thought of.

These first three exercises require both red and black cards and a large surface to lay them out on.

Game 1: Character — Translation speed match

This exercise will help you remember the meaning of Chinese characters

1. Gather together a selection of red characters you wish to learn the meaning of, and place them on one side.
2. Gather together the corresponding black English translations on another side.
3. Put the red Chinese character and black English translation in pairs as fast as possible.

Game 2: Pronunciation — Translation speed match

This exercise will help you associate the sound of Chinese words with their English meanings.

1. Gather together a selection of red phonetics you wish to learn the meaning of, and place them on one side.
2. Gather together the corresponding black English translations on another side.
3. Put the red phonetics and black English translations into pairs as fast as possible.

Game 3: Character — Character super speed match

This exercise will help you recognise the differences between Chinese characters

1. Gather together a selection of red characters you wish to learn the meaning of, and place them on one side. Try to use characters that look similar, or that you often confuse with other characters.
2. Gather together the corresponding black characters on another side.
3. Match the red and black characters as fast as possible

While this may seem like a pointless exercise, if it is done often and under time pressure, it should help you to spot the differences between similar looking characters.

The following 2 exercises only require one set of cards (either red or black) and don’t need any surface to place the cards on. You could use these exercises while travelling on a bus or train.

Game 4: Character — Translation memorisation

This exercise will help you remember the meaning of Chinese characters, or the shape of Chinese Characters.

1. Gather a selection of black printed Character cards you wish to learn the meaning of.
2. Flip them so that the Chinese Character is facing you
3. Try to recall the English translation without looking at the reverse side of the card.
4. Shuffle the cards after you have been through the stack a few times. This prevents you memorising a sequence of words.

This activity can also be used to memorise Chinese characters as follows

1. Gather a selection of black printed English words you wish to learn the Chinese character for.
2. Flip them so that the English word is facing you
3. Try to recall what the Chinese character looks like without looking at the reverse side of the card. For added difficulty, write the character with a finger in the air. Remember to use the correct stroke order!
4. Shuffle the cards after you have been through the stack a few times. This prevents you memorising a sequence of words.

Game 5: Pronunciation — Translation memorisation

This exercise will help you associate Chinese characters with their pronunciation.

1. Gather a selection of red printed Character cards you wish to learn the meaning of.
2. Flip them so that the Chinese Character is facing you
3. Try to recall the pronunciation without looking at the reverse side of the card.
4. Shuffle the cards after you have been through the stack a few times. This prevents you memorising a sequence of words.

This activity can also be used to memorise Chinese characters as follows.

1. Gather a selection of red printed phonetic sounds you wish to learn the Chinese character for.
2. Flip them all so that the phonetic is facing you
3. Try to recall what the Chinese character looks like without looking at the reverse side of the card. For added difficulty, write the character with a finger in the air. Remember to use the correct stroke order!
4. Shuffle the cards after you have been through the stack a few times. This prevents you memorising a sequence of words.

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The long-overdue instructions are finally here! I must be honest: doing daily posts is more work than I expected… However, I’ll try my best to keep this a daily blog. Please forgive me if I miss a day or two.

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I’ve been up all evening battling with Photoshop and .pdf files. As promised, I’ve got some flashcards for you now, but they really are too small and need tweaking. I’ll have the improved versions up tomorrow, including cutting and folding instructions, and how you can use them.
Sorry for the delay!

Update(14/3/2008)
They are done, in all their optimised .PDF glory! Download the flashcards for numbers zero to ten(.pdf, 604kB) and simply print them out.

Please see the construction instructions and usage instructions for the flashcards.

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Now that you know ‘zero’ as well as one to ten, you should be able to communicate any number imaginable to a native Mandarin speaker, simply by saying the digits in sequence! Congratulations for getting this far! As a short practice, try to say the digits of your phone number. Once you can do that, try your ID number as well!

If you find that too easy, say the following digits as fast as you can:

18374220947349017538934561234

As promised, next lesson will consist of a set of printable flash cards, allowing you to memorise all these characters, their meanings and associated pronunciations.