Something New

Today I did something new, I saw a sign for Free Chinese Classes every Monday evening, and I went! I learned how to count (and write #'s) in Chinese!

It was actually quite simple, there are really only 11 main numbers to remember (0-10)

Chinese -- # --> Pinyin - (Pronounciation)

零 ------ 0 --> ling - ("Ling")

一 ------ 1 --> yi - ("ee")

二 ------ 2 --> er - ("rrr")

三 ------ 3 --> san - ("sahn")

四 ------ 4 --> si - ("Ssuh")

五 ------ 5 --> wu - ("woo")

六 ------ 6 --> liu - ("le-OH")

七 ------ 7 --> qi - ("chee" [like cheese lol])

八 ------ 8 --> ba - ("bah")

九 ------ 9 --> jiu - ("g-OH")

十 ------ 10 --> shi - ("shUH")

Pronunciation can be a little tricky, but once you get the hang of it, you can say all the numbers 0-99!

It's kind of like in the French language (for those of you who have taken French), for example, the number 20 would be 2 x 10 (2 tens), so:

20 -->

二 十

er shi

(2 + 10)

for 11-19 you say ten + (#), so:

11 -->

十 一

shi yi

(ten + 1)

12 -->

十 二

shi er

(ten + 2)

13 -->

十 三

shi san

(ten + 3)

and so forth.

Pretty simple, right? :)

And also important, further on:

Hundred --> 百 bai ("bYE")

Same concept as before, 200 would be 2 x 100 (2 hundreds), so:

200 would be-->

二 百

er bai

201 would be -->

二 百 零 一

er bai ling yi

(2 hundreds, zero, 1)

315 would be -->

一 百 十 五

san bai yi shi wu

(3 hundreds, 1 ten, five)

Get it? :)

Also important,

Thousand --> 千 qian ("chee-on")

Same concept, 4000 would be

四 千

si qian

(4 + thousand)

2009 would be

二 千 零 九

er qian ling jiu

(2 + thousand + zero + nine)

(zero/"ling" is only said once, since you already specified that it is thousand)

"Er qian ling jiu" is also the current year - 2009. (now you can say the year in Chinese!)

There, now you learned something new!

TRY THESE ON YOUR OWN:

(leave your solutions (in Pinyin is fine) in a comment)

1. 16

2. 22

3. 99

4. 500

5. 5001

BONUS: 888

GOOD LUCK!