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I tried to search for a sample sentence at jukuu to understand the grammartical rule regarding which is ahead of the other, and got the following sentence.

去广州的票价是人民币九十一元。

他的债务共计为人民币五百元。

The order seems to be currency + value.

However, in another sentence I got the following sentence:

一美元价值8.2元人民币。

In this case, it is value + currency.

So now I wonder which is the correct way to express the currency and its numerical value. Is there any rule regarding this? And is it consistent among different currencies and in all magnitudes of units?

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In '人民币九十一元', '人民币' modifies '九十一元'- (91 dollar --> 91 dollars in RMB)

In '九十一元人民币', '九十一元' modifies '人民币'- (RMB --> 91 dollars of RMB)

They mean the same, and you can use either one.

In '一美元价值8.2元人民币。', '一(元)' modifies 美元 (USD --> 1 (dollar) of USD); '8.2元' modifies '人民币' (RMB --> 8.2 dollars of RMB)

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  • OK, thanks for the clarification. Then which is more common or sounds more natural for locals (I usually talk with young mainlanders if that is relevant)?
    – Blaszard
    Aug 23, 2017 at 22:05
  • in oral Chinese, we say 91 人民币，no 元 ^_^ , only when foreign exchange involved, we use 人民币,
    – Daniel Yang
    Aug 24, 2017 at 0:27
  • 人民币九十一元 and 人民币五百元 are formal expressions. Orally, 五百块/元，九十一块/元。 元 is more formal than 块, just like dollars vs bucks. Unless it's necessary to refer to what kind of currency it needs （Like dealing with foreigners, currency exchanges, etc.）, we usually omit 人民币.
    – dan
    Aug 24, 2017 at 1:10

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