Did you know about this counting system in Chinese
There’s
a reason why I love the simplicity of hand counting numbers in Chinese.
You
can do it with just one hand and you can count to huge amount of numbers in
this way e.g. 1000 would be signed as one ten ten ten, so handy!
But
most importantly it’s a life saver in the busy loud markets for when you can’t
talk to the shopkeepers. How many jin (unit of measure) of pork do I want?
For
numbers one to five it’s pretty simple… it’s the same as our system. It’s from
six that it gets more complicated, but if you know the Chinese character for
the numbers it makes more sense.
Not
I’m not telling you to give me a call, I want 6 of something! To hand sign six
just extend the little finger and thumb with all the other fingers closed.
Think
of the sign for money, it’s the Chinese number seven, except you don’t rub your
hands. The fingers are all touching whilst you point upwards.
Ever
play fought with imaginary hand guns as a kid, then you know how to do a number
eight in Chinese. Just make a sideways L with your fingers.
Number
nine is well fitted to the Beijing accent (we all sound like pirates using rrr
at the end of words) as it looks like a pirate’s hand hook.
Fingers
crossed the seller won’t raise their prices? Nope, crossing your fingers makes
the number ten. How many jin of pork did I want?
Lingo Bus is an online Chinese learning platform for children ages from 5 to 12.
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