Numbers 11–100
Numbers 11–100
This is where the earlier lesson's promise pays off — Chinese numbers above ten are pure, transparent arithmetic, built directly from the 1–10 building blocks you already know.
Grammar Comparison
Grammar Comparison
11–19: literally "ten-one", "ten-two"...
十一 (shíyī, ten-one), 十二 (shí'èr, ten-two)
eleven, twelve
There's no irregular word like English "eleven" or "twelve" to memorize separately. 十 (shí, ten) plus a digit gives you 11–19 directly: 十一 is literally "ten-one" (11), 十五 (shíwǔ) is "ten-five" (15). Once you know 1–10, you already know how to build every number from 11–19 — there's nothing new to learn, just combination.
20, 30, 100: the same building blocks, just reordered
二十 (èrshí, two-ten = 20), 三十五 (sānshíwǔ, three-ten-five = 35), 一百 (yìbǎi, one-hundred = 100)
twenty, thirty-five, one hundred
"Twenty" is 二十 (èrshí), literally "two-ten" — the digit now comes before 十 instead of after it. Everything in between follows the same pattern: 三十五 (sānshíwǔ) is "three-ten-five" (35). 100 introduces one new word, 百 (bǎi), and unlike English "a hundred", Chinese requires the "one": 一百 (yìbǎi), never just 百 on its own.
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
- English
- eleven
- English
- twelve
- English
- fifteen
- English
- twenty
- English
- thirty
- English
- forty
- English
- fifty
- English
- thirty-five
- English
- twenty-one
- English
- one hundred