Counting in Chinese

Again, as a Chinese, I was asked to introduce our Chinese number system in class. Everyone agreeed that counting in Chinese is easier than in English, both in reading and writing.

Notice that from 1 to 10, there are ten different numbers. But from 11 on, each number is actually a ten ( 十 ) plus a corresponding digit in the one’s place. For example, 11 is ten-one ( 十一 ). In English, eleven does not seem to have any relation either with ten or one.

However, when it comes to 20, in English, there is also a pattern. For example, 21 is twenty-one, which is twenty plus the corresponding digit in the one’s place. But in Chinese, not only 21 is related to 20, 20 is also related to ten. In fact, 20 is written as two tens ( 二十 ) in Chinese.

Moreover, reading numbers in Chinese is much easier than in English.

Arab	Chinese			English
	Chinese characters	Phonetic form	Meaning
1	一	yi	One	One
2	二	er	Two	Two
3	三	san	Three	Three
4	四	si	Four	Four
5	五	wu	Five	Five
6	六	liu	Six	Six
7	七	qi	Seven	Seven
8	八	ba	Eight	Eight
9	九	jiu	Nine	Nine
10	十	shi	Ten	Ten
11	十一	shi yi	Ten-one	Eleven
12	十二	shi er	Ten-two	Twelve
13	十三	shi san	Ten-three	Thirteen
14	十四	shi si	Ten-four	Fourteen
15	十五	shi wu	Ten-five	Fifteen
16	十六	shi liu	Ten-six	Sixteen
17	十七	shi qi	Ten-seven	Seventeen
18	十八	shi ba	Ten-eight	Eighteen
19	十九	shi jiu	Ten-nine	Nineteen
20	二十	er shi	Two tens	Twenty
21	二十一	er shi yi	Two-ten one	function forumSelected() { var forumId = $("#forumId").val(); if(forumId == null || '' == forumId) { alert('请选择论坛.'); } else { } } [ 打印 ] [ 加入书签 ] 阅读 () ┆ 评论 (0) 评论 目前还没有任何评论 登录后才可评论.