Numbers 數字

Numbers are used all over the place, so it’s important to get them right.

Counting upwards

Numbers in Cantonese are very regular, so it’s very easy. Starting from zero to ten, it goes likes this:

0	1	2	3	4	5
ling4	jat1	ji6	saam1	sei3	ng5
零	一	二	三	四	五

To get eleven, we look at it and think, ‘oh it’s ten plus one’. Ah! so ten one: 十一(sap6 jat1). And that’s how we’re building up the numbers. Going up from eleven to twenty looks like this, note twenty is put together as ‘two tens’:

11	12	13	14	15
sap6 jat1	sap6 ji6	sap6 saam1	sap6 sei3	sap6 ng5
十一	十二	十三	十四	十五
16	17	18	19	20
sap6 luk6	sap6 cat1	sap6 baat3	sap6 gau2	ji6 sap6
十六	十七	十八	十九	二十

And this pattern goes on for a bit…

21	22	45	73	99
ji6 sap6 jat1	ji6 sap6 ji6	sei3 sap6 ng5	cat1 sap6 saam1	gau2 sap6 gau2
二十一	二十二	四十五	七十三	九十九

Now we’ve gotten to a hundred. I guess we can do ten lots of ten (something like 十十(sap6 sap6)), but if we go down that route things will get out of hand really quickly. Just like in English, there’s a separate word for hundred: 百(baak3). Also like English to say ‘one hundred’ we need to add the ‘one’ in front of the hundred: 一百(jat1 baak3). And so starting from 100 to 110 looks like this:

100	101	102	103	104	105
jat1 baak3	jat1 baak3 ling4 jat1	jat1 baak3 ling4 ji6	jat1 baak3 ling4 saam1	jat1 baak3 ling4 sei3	jat1 baak3 ling4 ng5
一百	一百零一	一百零二	一百零三	一百零四	一百零五
106	107	108	109	110	111
jat1 baak3 ling4 luk6	jat1 baak3 ling4 cat1	jat1 baak3 ling4 baat3	jat1 baak3 ling4 gau2	jat1 baak3 jat1 sap6	jat1 baak3 jat1 sap6 jat1
一百零六	一百零七	一百零八	一百零九	一百一十	一百一十一

We use 零(ling4) when there is a 0 in the middle of the number. In the examples above, there’s a 0 in the tens position for 101 to 109, so we bridge over the tens with 零 to make 一百零一 to 一百零九.

To let us count even higher numbers we have these words in hand. Notice they don’t line up the same as the ones in English:

1,000	10,000	100,000	1,000,000
jat1 cin1	jat1 maan6	sap6 maan6	jat1 baak3 maan6
一千	一萬	十萬	一百萬

Things like First or Second

Okay that was fun. But what about things like ‘first’, ‘second’ and things like that. That’s also very easy, you just stick the word 第(dai6) in front of the number, like this:

| first | second | hundred and ninety-ninth | |:-:|:-:|:-:|:-:| | dai6 jat1 | dai6 ji6 | dai6 jat1 baak3 gau2 sap6 gau2 | | 第一 | 第二 | 第一百九十九 |

Great. But be careful with this, because not all the times you use ‘first’, ‘second’ etc. in English would also mean using 第一, 第二 etc. in Cantonese. The one we’ll come across the most is with floors:

一樓(jat1 lau4)
first floor
Lit. one floor

Some Number of Something

It is very straightforward to say so number of a certain thing in Chinese. All you need to know is the pattern:

Amount + Measure Word + Object

If you are only saying the size of something (like the distance between two cities), then obviously there’s no object to speak of, and you only have the amount followed by the unit itself.

Some examples:

• 一架車
  a car
• 三英里(jing1 lei5)
  three miles

The only bit to be careful of is with the number two. It is standard to use the word 兩(loeng5) instead of 二 when saying two of something (and only two; you rarely find this is used in any other numbers with a 2 in it like twenty, two hundred etc.):

• 兩隻貓
  two cats
• 兩公里
  two kilometres

The only doubly careful thing is for the old measurement 両 it’s also 二両 and not 兩両.

Advanced

Whilst we are here talking about special number words, there are also specific number words for larger numbers:

• 廿(jaa6) for twenty (e.g. 廿五 for twenty five)
• 卅(saa1) for thirty (e.g. 卅三 for thirty three) There are a handful more but those are extremely rarely used.

Numbers That Aren’t Whole

Advanced

What about numbers that aren’t whole? How do we say decimals and fractions?

Let’s start with decimals, that’s the easier of the two. Then we’ll move to fractions.

We use the word 點(dim2) for where the decimal point goes, like how the word ‘point’ is used in English. The digits after the decimal point only needs to be said as they are (again, just like English):

0.31416	34.5239
零點三一四一六(ling4 dim2 saam1 jat1 sei3 jat1 luk6)	三十四點五二三九(saam1 sap6 sei2 dim2 ng5 ji6 saam1 gau2)
Zero point three one four one six	Thirty four point five two three nine
124.003
一百二十四點零零三(jat1 baak3 ji6 sap6 sei3 dim2 ling4 ling4 saam1)
one hundred and twenty four point zero zero three

Fractions are a bit different in Cantonese than English. Unlike English where the nominator (the number on top) goes first, followed by the dominator (the number on bottom), it’s the other way round.

Here’s an example to show what I mean:

Numbers	English	Cantonese
$\frac{7}{25}$	seven over twenty five / seven twenty fifths	二十五份之(fan6 zi1)七

As you can see in Cantonese the dominator goes before the nominator, linked using the words 分之.

There’s also a special word for a half: 一半(bun3)

Negative Numbers

In Cantonese we stick in the word 負(fu6) in front of the number to make it a negative number:

• 負三十二(fu6 saam1 sap6 ji6): -32
• 負六點三二(fu6 luk6 dim2 saam1 ji6): -6.32

For saying temperatures we can also use the phrase 零下(ling4 haa6), which means below zero, instead of 負.

今晚天氣好凍(dung3)，只有零下五度(ling4 haa6 ng5 dou6)。
The weather tonight’s really cold, it’s only -5 degrees.