DAY 17: Say large numbers in Chinese（100-999）

In the present example, you’ll figure out how to say the numbers from 100-999.

Expansion

The Change of Tone of “yī” (one)

Have you at any point saw that the 100 is pronunced as “yì bǎi” rather than “yī bǎi” in the sound? Indeed, you heard it accurately. The phonetic decide states that when “yī ” is trailed by the principal tone (level tone),second tone (rising tone) and the third tone (falling-rising tone), the tone of “yī ” ought to change to the fourth tone (falling tone). For examples:

Word	O	P
100	yī bǎi	yì bǎi
1,000	yī qiān	yì qiān
one year	yī nián	yì nián
one day	yī tiān	yì tiān

110 or 101?

The pronunciation of 110 as “yì bǎi yī shí” may have troubled you for a while as it is easy to forget the “yī ” in front of “shí” by mistakenly saying it like “yì bǎi shí”. Here we will introduce you another short-cut to express the number 110, which is “yì bǎi yī”, literally 100-1. For the Chinese number larger than 100, if it is ended with 0, like 120, it can be simply read as “yì bǎi èr ” for short. people actually say it this way more often in daily life due to its simplicity. Let’s see more examples as below:

NO.	Formal way	Shortcut
110	yì bǎi yī shí	yì bǎi yī
120	yì bǎi èr shí	yì bǎi èr
230	èr bǎi sān shí	èr bǎi sān
440	sì bǎi sì shí	sì bǎi sì
790	qī bǎi jiǔ shí	qī bǎi jiǔ

Common mistake: Never get wrong between the number 110 and 101. 110 is read yì bǎi yī, but 101 is read yì bǎi líng yī. So when 0 is in the middle of the number, 0 (líng) can never be omitted, and only when 0 is in the end of a number larger than 100, o can be silent.

No.	pīn yīn	No.	pīn yīn
110	yì bǎi yī	101	yì bǎi língyī
120	yì bǎi èr	102	yì bǎi língèr
340	sān bǎi sì	304	sān bǎi língsì

Grammar

Express 100-999 in Chinese

No.	yì bǎi	èr bǎi	sān bǎi	sì bǎi	wǔ bǎi
100-900 (1-9) + bǎi	一	二	三	四	五
	100	200	300	400	500
	liù bǎi	qī bǎi	bā bǎi	jiǔ bǎi
	六	七	八	九
	600	700	800	900

e.g.
327	300	20	7
327	sān bǎi	èr shí	qī
589	500	80	9
589	wǔ bǎi	bā shí	jiǔ

How to express 101 in Chinese?

When the number contains a zero in it, you should always read out 0 as líng. And no matter how many 0 there are in the middle of the number, you only have to read 0 ONCE.For example：

No.	Character	pīn yīn
101	一百零一	yì bǎi líng yī
102	一百零二	yì bǎi líng èr

How to say 110 in Chinese?

Saying the numbers larger than 100, if the number 1 occupies the tens digit, like 110 or 1,110. We should explicitly specify the Number of Tens contained in the number.For example：

No.	pīn yīn	Lit. translation	Wrong expression
110	yì bǎi yī shí	One hundred + one + ten	yì bǎi shí Q
211	èr bǎi yī shí yī	Two hundred + one + ten + one	èr bǎi shí yī Q
523	wǔ bǎi èr shí sān	Five hundred + two + ten + three	–