Chinese Number Converter
Type any number and get it in Chinese characters with pinyin — plus the spoken variant when it differs, and a breakdown of every character so you can see what each one means and how it is pronounced.
Written Chinese
一千二百三十四
yì qiān èr bǎi sān shí sì
Spoken variant: 一千两百三十四 (yì qiān liǎng bǎi sān shí sì)
Character by character
Click any character for its strokes, tones and full entry.
Tones matter: each character above is the one actually used in the number, and the pinyin reflects the tone changes that happen in speech (for example 一 reads yī alone but yì in 一百).
Numbers in Chinese: reference table
The building blocks are thirteen characters — 零 一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十 百 千 — plus 万 and 亿 for grouping. Everything below is a combination of those.
| Number | Chinese | Pinyin |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | 一 | yī |
| 2 | 二 | èr |
| 3 | 三 | sān |
| 4 | 四 | sì |
| 5 | 五 | wǔ |
| 6 | 六 | liù |
| 7 | 七 | qī |
| 8 | 八 | bā |
| 9 | 九 | jiǔ |
| 10 | 十 | shí |
| 11 | 十一 | shí yī |
| 12 | 十二 | shí èr |
| 13 | 十三 | shí sān |
| 14 | 十四 | shí sì |
| 15 | 十五 | shí wǔ |
| 16 | 十六 | shí liù |
| 17 | 十七 | shí qī |
| 18 | 十八 | shí bā |
| 19 | 十九 | shí jiǔ |
| 20 | 二十 | èr shí |
| 30 | 三十 | sān shí |
| 40 | 四十 | sì shí |
| 50 | 五十 | wǔ shí |
| 60 | 六十 | liù shí |
| 70 | 七十 | qī shí |
| 80 | 八十 | bā shí |
| 90 | 九十 | jiǔ shí |
| 100 | 一百 | yì bǎi |
| 200 | 二百 | èr bǎi |
| 300 | 三百 | sān bǎi |
| 1000 | 一千 | yì qiān |
| 2000 | 二千 | èr qiān |
| 10000 | 一万 | yí wàn |
| 100000 | 十万 | shí wàn |
| 1000000 | 一百万 | yì bǎi wàn |
| 100000000 | 一亿 | yí yì |
How the system works
Ten, hundred, thousand — then a new word. Chinese has dedicated characters for 十 (ten), 百 (hundred) and 千 (thousand). Beyond that it stops inventing words and starts grouping: 万 is ten thousand and 亿 is a hundred million.
Groups are four digits wide, not three. This is the single most useful thing to internalize. English groups by thousands (12,345,678 = 12 million, 345 thousand, 678), Chinese groups by ten thousands (1234万5678). So 12,000,000 is 一千二百万 — “one thousand two hundred ten-thousands”. Once you read large numbers through the 万 / 亿 lens, they stop feeling arbitrary.
Zero fills skipped places. 零 appears wherever a place value inside the number is empty: 105 is 一百零五 (one hundred, zero tens, five). Consecutive empty places still take a single 零, and a leading zero is never written.
两 replaces 二 before measure words and large units. You say 两个人 for two people and 两百 for two hundred, while 二 is what you use for counting, dates, and ordinals like 第二 (second). Getting this wrong is one of the clearest “not a native speaker” signals, so the converter shows both forms when they differ.
一 is not always yī. Before a fourth tone it becomes yí (一万 yí wàn); before the other tones it becomes yì (一百 yì bǎi). Alone, or before 十, it stays yī — which is why 110 is yì bǎi yī shí and not yì bǎi yì shí.
Decimals use 点. 3.14 is 三点一四 — read digit by digit after the point, not as “十四”. Negatives take 负 in front: -20 is 负二十.
Frequently asked questions
How do you say zero in Chinese?
零 (líng). It is also used inside a number wherever a place value is skipped: 105 is 一百零五, not 一百五 — the 零 stands in for the missing tens.
Why does two sometimes become 两 (liǎng)?
二 (èr) is the counting number used when reading digits, dates and ordinals. 两 (liǎng) is used when two is followed by a measure word or a large unit — 两个人 (two people), 两百 (two hundred), 两万 (twenty thousand). Both are correct in their own place, which is why this tool shows the spoken variant separately when it differs.
How do Chinese numbers above 10,000 work?
They group by four digits, not three. 万 is ten thousand and 亿 is a hundred million, so 12,000,000 is 一千二百万 — literally “one thousand two hundred ten-thousands”. This is the biggest structural difference from English and the reason learners misread large numbers.
Why does the pinyin show yì instead of yī for 一?
一 changes tone in speech. Before a fourth tone it becomes yí (一万 yí wàn), and before the other tones it becomes yì (一百 yì bǎi). Alone or before 十 it stays yī — so 110 is yì bǎi yī shí.
Can I use this for money or phone numbers?
For reading numbers aloud, yes. Note that phone numbers are normally read digit by digit (and the digit 1 is often read yāo rather than yī to avoid confusion), which is a different convention from the one shown here.
Is this converter free?
Yes, and the conversion happens entirely in your browser — nothing you type is sent anywhere.