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11 votes
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Does 兩點九 mean 2:09 or 2:45?

Does 兩點九 have two different meanings? Or does it always mean 2:45? It does not have two different meanings. It means 2:45. We can also say 兩點四十五分。 In fact, it's more direct to say 兩點四十五分, if we're ...
monalisa's user avatar
  • 6,171
7 votes

兆 as (part of) a number

Outside the IT world, 1兆 is 10^12, or 1万 x 1亿. But you won't see this use very much now. Inside the IT world, (when you talk about the size of hard disk, memory, etc ...) 1兆 is 1M, which is 1024k, ...
fefe's user avatar
  • 8,775
7 votes

When do we use "廿", "卅" and "卌"?

As far as I know, in Mainland China: 廿 is only used in written lunar calendar. It is very rarely used in spoken Chinese. However, it may be used in some dialects such as Cantonese. 卅 is not used in ...
Winfred Huang's user avatar
7 votes
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What's the relationship between "separate" and "eight" (old and modern meanings of 八)?

Generally speaking, we cannot create pictures or ideograms for every morpheme in a language; we'll quickly run into practicality issues if we try to do so. 「八」 (Baxter-Sagart OC: /*pˤret/) should be ...
dROOOze's user avatar
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6 votes
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Why number 2 has two forms?

A counterexample: in the Min Dong topolects, there is a similar distribution for the numeral "one", viz 一 and 蜀 (in Fuzhou, pronounced ék /ɛiʔ²⁴/ and siŏh /suoʔ⁵/ respectively). This is actually ...
Michaelyus's user avatar
  • 6,826
6 votes

Why people more frequently say "三四个", less frequently say "三五个" or "四五个" or "五六个", and even more less frequently say "四六个"?

1. About 三四个,四五个,五六个 and ballpark numbers It's common to express ballpark quantities with adjacent numbers. 三四个 means about three or four. Same works for 四五个,五六个. Thus you can infer the use and ...
kuku's user avatar
  • 161
6 votes
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Can 九十 = "ninety" also mean "nine or ten" (like how 三四 means "three or four")?

No, since 九十 already means exactly 'ninety', it cannot be use as an approximate figure for 'nine or ten' 'nine or ten years old' has to be written as "九至十岁" You can say 十一二 (11 or t2) , 十三四 (13 or ...
Tang Ho's user avatar
  • 81.4k
5 votes

When do we use "廿", "卅" and "卌"?

廿, 卅, 卌 are never used in Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese except some idiomatic expressions. They might be used in Old Chinese and Middle Chinese, but never in Modern Standard Mandarin Chinese, ...
Victor's user avatar
  • 1,877
5 votes
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When did Chinese switch from full numerical year numbers (e.g. 一千八百九十四) to per-digit year numbers (e.g. 一八九四)?

We see "full number" readings earlier, in the late 19th century, closer to those in the West; however, the "digit-by-digit" method was also found, being more associated with the ...
Michaelyus's user avatar
  • 6,826
5 votes
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船 composed of characters for vessel, 8, and person?

Unfortunately the glyph origin is not correct. It seems like the method you are using is more aligned into the "break every component down into parts you can recognize" way of memorizing ...
prismcool's user avatar
  • 766
5 votes
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When years are (or were) written using Hanzi numerals, what are the usual variants/options?

Today is 二零二三年十一月四日 (04- Nov-2023) in 公曆 (Gregorian calendar) 2023 is a date, not a counting number, therefore, it is not written as 二千零二十三 as in $2023 (二千零二十三元) 壹贰叁肆伍陆柒捌玖 mostly appear in cheques or ...
Tang Ho's user avatar
  • 81.4k
4 votes

When Chinese speakers read Arabic numbers, do they still read them in Chinese?

I'm a native speaker. I'll read "我(wo) 想(xiang) 要(yao) 三(san) 百(bai) 二(er) 十(shi) 一(yi) 個(ge) 餃(jiao) 子(zi)". BTW "321餃子" doesn't make sense. "321個餃子" would be correct because you need the unit "個".
NoobTW's user avatar
  • 460
4 votes
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Why do the chinese count with 正?

I'd like to know why that particular character is used. (I have seen it used in stamps before too). because 正 is a common character 正 has five stokes All five stokes are straight and no overlap, so ...
Tang Ho's user avatar
  • 81.4k
4 votes

How to state fractions with units of measurement? (e.g. 0.75 lb, 1.5 lbs, 1.75 lbs, etc.)

1.5 lbs = 一磅半 (only when 'and a half') or 一點五磅 1.75 lbs = 一又四分之三磅 or 一點七五磅 Since 個 is actually a unit itself, there should not be 個 when there are units and should also be used after the number such ...
InQβ's user avatar
  • 226
4 votes

How to state fractions with units of measurement? (e.g. 0.75 lb, 1.5 lbs, 1.75 lbs, etc.)

在中文里他们正确的读法是下面这样: 3/4 lb = 四分之三磅 1.5 lbs = 一点五磅 1.75 lbs = 一点七五磅
biezhi's user avatar
  • 41
4 votes
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Can I express the numbers at more than one decimal point using 成?

Well, you could say 五成五 for 0.55 or 55%. 99% could be 九成九. For example, 九成九的人会参加这会议, meaning 99% of people will attend the meeting. Usually, people won't put that accurate. They may just say 大约五成, ...
dan's user avatar
  • 24k
4 votes
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Should 118 be read as 一百一十八 or 一百十八?

The year number is always read digit by digit, so 2018年 is read as 二〇一八年. 118 should be read as 一百一十八 in Standard Mandarin Chinese according to the mathematics textbooks in primary school, but the ...
Victor's user avatar
  • 1,877
4 votes

"Banking" alternatives for digit characters?

0、1、2、3、4、5、6、7、8、9、10、100、1,000(1K)、10,000(10K)、100,000,000(100M) Traditional Chinese 零、壹、 貳、參、肆、伍、陸、柒、捌、玖、拾、佰、仟、萬、億 or Simplified Chinese 零、壹、 贰、叁、肆、伍、陆、柒、捌、玖、拾、佰、仟、万、亿
hinen's user avatar
  • 5,896
4 votes
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What does 他得经历九九八十一难 refer to?

It is from 'Multiplier table' Normally, saying 81 days is enough, saying 九九八十一 emphasize nine circles of nine days periods The most commonly quoted Multiplier table phrase is 七七四十九日 (7x7=49). ...
Tang Ho's user avatar
  • 81.4k
4 votes

Does 兩點九 mean 2:09 or 2:45?

兩點九 is in traditional-chinese, with the missing characher "分" , implies Cantonese way of timing. traditional-chinese is mainly used in HongKong/Taiwan/Macau. simplified-chinese is used in ...
James Li's user avatar
  • 149
4 votes

What does 二千〇九 mean?

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 ...
Jason Swift's user avatar
  • 1,853
4 votes
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Which numeral system is taught at schools in China?

As @r13 said in comment, your application is similar to 九九乘法表. Here is an example. In 九九乘法表, equations are usually written with Arabic numerals but read in Chinese (that is, you don’t need to ...
kyc's user avatar
  • 1,146
3 votes

When Chinese speakers read Arabic numbers, do they still read them in Chinese?

When reading the number '1,542,811' the first thing I do is count the number of digits from the smallest to the largest. In this case, I would first count: "個、十、百、千、萬、十萬、百萬" to confirm it is a seven ...
Tang Ho's user avatar
  • 81.4k
3 votes

When should I use 兆 instead of 万亿?

兆 was used in ancient China to represent trillion, it is no longer used in mainland China, but still used in Taiwan, it uniquely represents the mega prefix in the International System of Units ...
xenophōn's user avatar
  • 1,402
3 votes
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Are all these ways of saying 1.59 in Chinese currency correct?

元、角 are formal and 块、毛 are their colloquial counterparts respectively. Mix and match is much less common but not unheard of. Omitting the last unit word is also an informal usage. 一块五十九分 is ...
NS.X.'s user avatar
  • 14.9k
3 votes

Why is 两十万 (liǎng shí wàn) okay when it contains 两十 (liǎng shí) which is incorrect?

「兩」didn't originally mean two. The character was first used for what is now written「輛」, the unit of measure for vehicles, being differentiated from「丙」and composed of two「丙」side-by-side: The mark「一」...
dROOOze's user avatar
  • 23.6k
3 votes

Chinese numerals or Arabic numerals?

In formal writing in Chinese, should we write 事情已经过去了一万二千三百四十五天。 Only when you are writing in vertical writing format -- from top to bottom, right to left in columns As for horizontal writing format ...
Tang Ho's user avatar
  • 81.4k
3 votes

Are there Escher sentences in Chinese? [kinda technical]

"More people have been to Russia than I have" doesn't make sense in English, therefore, it wouldn't make sense in Chinese neither. (2)-(4) would not be considered grammatical by native ...
Tang Ho's user avatar
  • 81.4k
3 votes

Nouns that don't require a measure word

The trick is the omission behind (again). It is the objective that is omitted, not the MW words. The complete words are: 三年(时间),四周(时间), etc As you can see now, there are MW words. Just too obvious ...
Shaw's user avatar
  • 868
3 votes

What's the relationship between "separate" and "eight" (old and modern meanings of 八)?

According to Outlier Dictionary (citing 《說文新證》), it's a sound loan, which is a very common way for characters to acquire new and unrelated meanings. The words for "separate" and "eight&...
Lionel Rowe's user avatar

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