# Numbers (one to ten)



## jana.bo99

Hello to all,

I am very curious how the numbers look like in Chinese?

(with pinyin, please)

Thank you,
jana.bo


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## Rorrey

Simpal form: 一二三四五六七八九十
Formal form: 壹貳參肆伍陸柒捌玖拾


Pronunciation:
1:yi
2:er
3:san
4:sz
5:wu
6:liou
7:chi
8:ba
9:jiou
10:shr


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## univerio

I must disagree with your pinyin.

1 - yī
2 - èr
3 - sān
4 - sì
5 - wǔ
6 - liù
7 - qī
8 - bā
9 - jiǔ
10 - shí


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## GEmatt

Zero belongs in there, too:

零
líng


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## Mugi

Not if the OP only wants to know 1 to 10


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## xiaolijie

univerio said:


> I must disagree with your pinyin.


I think Rorrey was using a _different_ system of phonetic transcription.


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## jana.bo99

Hello to all,

Thank you for explanation of numbers: 1 till 10!

I will use from Rorrey, because for me is much easier with letters than with squares.

jana.bo


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## samanthalee

jana.bo99 said:


> Hello to all,
> 
> Thank you for explanation of numbers: 1 till 10!
> 
> I will use from Rorrey, because for me is much easier with letters than with squares.
> 
> jana.bo



Squares? Oh you mean you can't see the accented alphabets? In that case, I'll re-write univerio's pinyin with numbers instead of accents.

 1 - yi1
2 - er4
3 - san1
4 - si4
5 - wu3
6 - liu4
7 - qi1
8 - ba1
9 - jiu3
10 - shi2


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## jana.bo99

Hello Samanthalee,

You call them: the accented alphabets? I have to remember it.

Means:
1 - yi1
2 - er4
3 - san1
4 - si4
5 - wu3
6 - liu4
7 - qi1
8 - ba1
9 - jiu3
10 - shi2 

Thank you very much.

I can't believe, I came here and at once I like Chinese language!

jana.bo


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## chvfire1610

yī   èr   sān   sì   wǔ   liù   qī   bā   jiǔ   shí


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## samanthalee

jana.bo99 said:


> You call them: the accented alphabets? I have to remember it.



Hi jana.bo99,

Sorry to have confused you.  We don't call them "accented alphabets", we don't have a name for them. But we call the diacritic marks the "tone marks".

If you have installed the Chinese fonts, you'll see the diacritic marks. We use the macron, the caron, the umlaut, the acute accent and the grave accent.


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## xiaolijie

samanthalee said:


> If you have installed the Chinese fonts, you'll see the diacritic marks. We use the macron, the caron, the umlaut, the acute accent and the grave accent.


Although installing Chinese fonts should help, it's not just a matter of installing Chinese fonts, as I should have got tons of them already installed in my computer, and yet I still see all letters with the 3rd tone as squares. From what I know, my problem has something to do with this site using a non-unicode-complying font (Verdana) as the default. A unicode-complying font such as Arial doesn't cause me this problem.


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## jana.bo99

Hello Samanthalee,

Thank you for constructions. I can't install anything here. 

That is reason I have to ask so much. 

jana.bo


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## AndyES

¿¿¿¿¿y cómo parece eso en sus letras originales?????


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## J.F. de TROYES

AndyES said:


> ¿¿¿¿¿y cómo parece eso en sus letras originales?????


 

El  Chino no usa letras, pero caracteres  que dan un sentido, pero leyéndolos es imposible adivinar la pronunciación :

一二三四五六七八九十  son los caracteres usuales para escribir “uno, dos, … diez.” Su pronunciación no depiende de la forma de estos caracteres. 
Para transcribir su lengua a otras los Chinos crearon en 1958 un sistemo que se llama “Pin Yin” ( =  transcripción de los sonidos ) y que permite leer los caracteres : yi, er, san , si, wu, liu,  qi, ba, jiu, shi , pero por simplificación los tonos esenciales para distinguir muchas palabras no están indicados ;  por eso para aprender el chino se añade cifras u acentos que anotan los tonos : por ejemplo “ wu3” o “wǔ” anota que hay que pronunciar la palabra 五 wu con el tercer tono .


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## AndyES

Por dios!
Qué complicado...
Es posible que alguien que no sea Chino aprenda su idioma correctamente??? Yo creo que no lo logría.........huala...


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## Chem Chi

I was taught slightly differently, but here is how I learned to count from 1 to 10 in Chinese:

ee
er (or ar)
san
su
oo
lieu
chi 
ba 
cho
shz

And thank you GEMatt, for teaching me zero (0) = "ling" ,   today.


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## J.F. de TROYES

Whatever the transcription, it's necessary to know what phonems the chosen letters fit. The _i_ of_ shi_ or the _z _of _shz _are quite arbitrary and can't give by themselves an idea of how to pronounce them. That's why textbooks use either the official Chinese pinyin or another transcription that seems to them more appropriate to the learners' language, but have to explain ( or better have them heard ) how each of these letters must be pronounced. Pinyin is taught in primary Chinese schools and must be well known by everyone learning Mandarin as it is used in dictionaries and grammars to write down the pronunciation of the characters.


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