How to Say Numbers or Count in Mandarin Chinese

Do you want to feel accomplished while you’re learning Mandarin Chinese? Learn to count in Mandarin! Counting in Mandarin is really easy, compared to many other languages!

I recently read an article titled “Your math ability could depend on the language you count in” and I couldn’t relate to it more!

I still think about numbers in Chinese despite having used English as my primary language for many years. I count and do all math calculations in my head in Chinese. I remember phone numbers or two-step verification codes in Chinese.

Thinking about numbers in Chinese is much easier and faster for me than in English. No matter how much time I spend in an English-speaking environment, I don’t ever want give up my numeracy skills in Chinese.

(The downside is that, I appear slow if I get asked a numerical question in English. I would have to spend my brain power processing numbers in English into Chinese first. Oh well.)

How do you say counting numbers in Chinese?

In Chinese, numbers are called 数. Digits are 数字. Mathematics is 数学. Data is 数据. The noun for numbers is pronounced shù, the fourth decreasing tone.

To keep things spicy, count is 数, the same character, but pronounced as shǔ, the third tone with a dip!

Let’s start 数数!

How to count in Chinese from zero to one hundred

Let’s get zero out of the way first. Zero is 零 = Líng. It’s not used anywhere again from zero to niney-nine in Chinese.

Counting from one to ninety-nine follows a system that’s very straightforward. As long as you learn how to count one to ten, you can easily count up to 99.

First, let’s listen to Peppa counting from one to ten!!

Rewind 5 Seconds Skip 5 Seconds Slow (0.50x) Speed Normal (1x) Speed

In Chinese, 11 is pronounced as 10-1; 20 is pronounced 2-10; 96 is pronounced as 9-10-6. It’s pretty straightforward.

For double digit numbers, you read out the first digit, add a “十” or ten in the middle, and you read out the second digit.

One hundred is 一百 = yī bǎi or literally 1 and 100.

A complete table for counting from zero to one hundred in Chinese

Can you find the pattern from the table below?

1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
一	二	三	四	五	六	七	八	九	十
yī	èr	sān	sì	wǔ	liù	qī	bā	jiǔ	shí
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
十一	十二	十三	十四	十五	十六	十七	十八	十九	二十
shí yī	shí èr	shí sān	shí sì	shí wǔ	shí liù	shí qī	shí bā	shí jiǔ	èr shí
21	22	23	24	25	26	27	28	29	30
二十一	二十二	二十三	二十四	二十五	二十六	二十七	二十八	二十九	三十
èr shí yī	èr shí èr	èr shí sān	èr shí sì	èr shí wǔ	èr shí liù	èr shí qī	èr shí bā	èr shí jiǔ	sān shí
31	32	33	34	35	36	37	38	39	40
三十一	三十二	三十三	三十四	三十五	三十六	三十七	三十八	三十九	四十
èr shí yī	shí èr	shí sān	shí sì	shí wǔ	shí liù	shí qī	shí bā	shí jiǔ	shí
41	42	43	44	45	46	47	48	49	50
四十一	四十二	四十三	四十四	四十五	四十六	四十七	四十八	四十九	五十
sì shí yī	sì shí èr	sì shí sān	sì shí sì	sì shí wǔ	sì shí liù	sì shí qī	sì shí bā	sì shí jiǔ	wǔ shí
51	52	53	54	55	56	57	58	59	60
五十一	五十二	五十三	五十四	五十五	五十六	五十七	五十八	五十九	六十
wǔ shí yī	wǔ shí èr	wǔ shí sān	wǔ shí sì	wǔ shí wǔ	wǔ shí liù	wǔ shí qī	wǔ shí bā	wǔ shí jiǔ	liù shí
61	62	63	64	65	66	67	68	69	70
六十一	六十二	六十三	六十四	六十五	六十六	六十七	六十八	六十九	七十
liù shí yī	liù shí èr	liù shí sān	liù shí sì	liù shí wǔ	liù shí liù	liù shí qī	liù shí bā	liù shí jiǔ	qī shí
71	72	73	74	75	76	77	78	79	80
七十一	七十二	七十三	七十四	七十五	七十六	七十七	七十八	七十九	八十
qī shí yī	qī shí èr	qī shí sān	qī shí sì	qī shí wǔ	qī shí liù	qī shí qī	qī shí bā	qī shí jiǔ	bā shí
81	82	83	84	85	86	87	88	89	90
八十一	八十二	八十三	八十四	八十五	八十六	八十七	八十八	八十九	九十
bā shí yī	bā shí èr	bā shí sān	bā shí sì	bā shí wǔ	bā shí liù	bā shí qī	bā shí bā	bā shí jiǔ	jiǔ shí
91	92	93	94	95	96	97	98	99	100
九十一	九十二	九十三	九十四	九十五	九十六	九十七	九十八	九十九	一百
jiǔ shí yī	jiǔ shí èr	jiǔ shí sān	jiǔ shí sì	jiǔ shí wǔ	jiǔ shí liù	jiǔ shí qī	jiǔ shí bā	jiǔ shí jiǔ	yī bǎi

How the Chinese number system is easier than many other languages

Let’s contrast this with French: 96 is quatre-vingt-seize in French which literally means “four times twenty plus sixteen”. Why?! Just why!?

English numbers are not too bad. But why are there “eleven” “twelve” instead of “one-teen” and “two-teen”, also why is it “teen” rather than “one-ty”. Oh well, you get my point.

The Japanese counting system is very similar to Chinese, but they have a bunch pronunciation variations that vary depending on the numbers, and sometimes there are two ways to read the same number. I find it hard to remember all the rules when it comes to numbers in Japanese.

I’d say the only weird rule counting from 1 to 100 in Mandarin Chinese is 二 vs 两 which I actually wrote about. (Technically speaking, you’d still use 二 in counting. Anyways, please read my article if you want to know how to use 两!)

Hear me count in Chinese from 0 to 100

I also recorded myself counting 0 to 100 in Chinese below:

Hear me count in Chinese from 0 to 10:

Hear me count in Chinese from 11 to 20:

Hear me count in Chinese from 21 to 30:

Hear me count in Chinese from 31 to 40:

Hear me count in Chinese from 41 to 50:

Hear me count in Chinese from 51 to 60:

Hear me count in Chinese from 61 to 70:

Hear me count in Chinese from 71 to 80:

Hear me count in Chinese from 81 to 90:

Hear me count in Chinese from 91 to 100:

How to say numbers from one-hundred to nine-hundred-and-ninety-nine in Chinese

The rules for how to read the numbers out loud are more complicated. They are mostly similar to English but there are some special cases involving separating out multiples of a hundred and multiples of ten. Let me summarize the rules below.

A number that is just a multiple of a hundred, such as 100, 200, 900: Say the first digit + 百.

100 = 一百
200 = 二百
900 = 九百

A number that can be decomposed into a multiple of a hundred plus a single digit, such as 101, 205, 904: Say the first digit + 百 + 零 + the last digit.

101 = 一百零一
205 = 二百零五
904 = 九百零九

Note that you have to have the 零 there, because in spoken Chinese 一百一 refers to 110, not 101. 二百五 refers to 250, not 205 (btw 二百五 is a colloquial way to call somebody dumb in Chinese.)]

A number that can be decomposed into a multiple of a hundred plus a multiple of ten, such as 110, 530, 490: Say the first digit + 百 + the second digit (+ 十).

110 = 一百一
530 = 五百三

Technically you can also say add a 十 at the end such as 一百一十, but more often than not the 十 is omitted in spoken Chinese.

A number that can be decomposed into a multiple of a hundred plus a number in the teens, such as 118, 319, 716: Say the first digit + 百 + 一十 + the last digit.

118 = 一百一十八
319 = 三百一十九
716 = 七百一十六

For any of the rest of the numbers, such as 224, 673, 592: Say the first digit + 百 + the normal way to say the two digit number.

224 = 二百二十四
673 = 六百七十三
592 = 五百九十二

How to say numbers one thousand and greater in Chinese

千 = qiān is thousand. 一千 is one thousand, 两千 is two thousand, etc. The rules for numbers in the thousands are very similar to those for the hundreds.

I would highlight that 一千一 means 1100 which is one thousand and one hundred, instead of one thousand and ten even though 110 is read as 一百一.

1100 = 一千一（百）
3600 = 三千六（百）

Other than the case above where you can decompose the number into a multiple of thousand and a multiple of a hundred, if there is a 0 before the last digit, you should read it out, such as

1001 = 一千零一
1010 = 一千零一十
7045 = 七千零四十五

Note that I mostly avoided using two in my examples. Please read my post on 二 vs 两 in addition to this article.

Beyond 千, there is also 万 which is 10,000 and 亿 which is 100,000,000 (AND NOT A BILLION, Google translate is misleading! Btw, watch me battle Google Translate.)

Come on, you probably wouldn’t be counting such large numbers in Chinese.

In colloquial Chinese, similar to English, you’d omit the smaller parts of the numbers and say things like 一千多 = yīqiān duō, just over one thousand, 大概一千 = dàgài yīqiān, about one thousand.

If you are reading out a model number or serial number of a product, you’d usually just read out the digits, check out an example in S01E51 Part 3.

Do you have a number in mind that you’re not sure how to say in Chinese? Comment and I can help.