1

二千〇九. A friend won't tell me what it means. The signs could be backwards.

2
  • 1
    it means 2009..
    – joehua
    Sep 6, 2022 at 0:13
  • we speak and write it as 两千零九 only.
    – Siwei
    Sep 11, 2022 at 0:03

2 Answers 2

4

〇 is a legitimate Chinese character that you can find in dictionaries. Basically it's just a simplified form of 零, or the character version of 0, with some differences:

  • 〇 doesn't have other meanings of 零 besides "zero"
  • 〇 can also serve as a placeholder for an unknown character
  • According to 《GB/T 15835-2011 General rules for writing numerals in public texts》, 零 is for measuring while 〇 is for numbering. So TECHNICALLY they are not interchangeable.

GB/T 15835-2011

GB/T 15835-2011

The other 3 characters are easy, 二 = 2, 千 = thousand, 九 = 9, so 二千〇九 means 2009.

2

二 -> 2 (can also use 两)

千 -> thousand

〇 -> 0 (can also use 零)

九 -> 9

to sum up, 二千〇九 -> 2009

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