Hi! I am Studyfin, your friendly Chinese guide. Today we will learn how to count to ten in Mandarin and see the cool patterns hidden in the characters!
In Mandarin Chinese, writing numbers is like drawing simple pictures. The numbers one, two, and three are just flat lines stacked on top of each other.
Let us look at how one, two, and three are built. One is one line (yī). Two is two lines (èr). Three is three lines (sān). See how they grow?
Once you hit ten (shí), the pattern changes. The character for ten looks just like a plus sign. Let us watch it draw itself!
✏️ Worked example
How can we write the number 13 in Chinese characters using what we know about 10 (shí) and 3 (sān)?
First, let us think about how the number 13 is made. 13 is just ten plus three.
In Mandarin, we write 'thirteen' by putting the symbol for 10 first, and then the symbol for 3 right next to it.
Let us write the symbol for 10, which looks like a plus sign: 十.
Next, let us write the symbol for 3, which is three flat lines: 三.
Put them together to get 十三 (shí sān). You just wrote the number thirteen in Chinese!
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