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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!