Numbers 1–10
Numbers 1–10
Chinese numbers are famously logical and never change form for gender or case — even simpler than English in that respect, since English at least distinguishes "a/an". Once you know 1–10, larger numbers mostly just combine these building blocks.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
Completely invariant — no gender, no case, ever
一, 二, 三...
one, two, three...
Chinese numbers never change at all, in any situation — 一 (yī) is always 一, whether counting people, books, or days. This simplicity carries all the way up: Chinese numbers 11–99 are built with pure, predictable arithmetic (11 is literally "ten-one", 20 is "two-ten"), which you'll meet in a later lesson.
一 (yī) can change tone depending on what follows
一个 (yí ge, one [of something]) vs. 一样 (yíyàng, the same) vs. 一 (yī, the number itself)
one — the same — one
As a small preview of tone sandhi (covered in the previous lesson): 一 (yī) is 1st tone on its own, but shifts to a 4th tone (yì) before a 4th-tone syllable, and a 2nd tone (yí) before another 4th-tone syllable in some contexts. Don't worry about mastering the rule yet — just notice that yī, yì, and yí are all the same character, 一, spoken slightly differently depending on its neighbor.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- one
- English
- two
- English
- three
- English
- four
- English
- five
- English
- six
- English
- seven
- English
- eight
- English
- nine
- English
- ten
- English
- zero