We are going to talk about numbers today:

1 yi (ee)

2 èr (r)

3 san

4 sì (think “i” is silent, just“s”itself in “smile”)

5 wu (woo)

6 liù (Leo)

7 qi (chee)

8 ba

9 jiu (Joe)

10 shí (sch)

you may notice when we are in the market, we often use our hand guesture to express numbers, and the way is quite different than the western ways.

yi èr san sì wu

liù qi ba jiu shí

Now let’s talk about the lucky and unlucky numbers in Chinese.

Do you know which number is considered as the luckiest number in China? Here is a hint, the opening ceremony of Beijing Olympics is: 2008, 8th month, 8th day, at 8pm… So, yes, the luckiest number goes to 8. Why? Because in some of the dialects, the pronunciation for 8 is similar as the pronunciation for “get rich”. So if you see somebody’s phone number or car plate number has 8s, then they must have paid a lot of money to have it.

How about the unlucky number? It is 4, because if you change the tone from “sì” to “si”, it means “die” or “death”, so that’s why you will find some of the buildings have no 4th floor, 14th floor, or any floors with “4”. So when you pronounce “4”, make sure you get the correct tone.

About some other numbers:

6 is also considered as good, which means “things go smoothly”, and it is also my favourite number?.

7 (qi) has similar sound as “eat”(chi), and as we all know Chinese people love eating, so of course it is a good number as well. If you live in Shanghai since last year, you probably heard a telephone number 57575777 whenever you took a white taxi, and right after this number you will hear “wo chi wo chi wo chi chi chi” which means “I eat I eat I eat eat eat”, so guess what telephone number it is?...... Bingo, it belongs to a restaurant!

9 (jiu) has the same sound as the meaning “long” when referring to time and we all want to have a long life, long marriage, and long business relationship, etc. Therefore it is good too.

Now can you tell me what is your lucky number...?

Kelly Wang is author of this article on Learning Mandarin. Find more information about Studying Mandarin Online here http://www.accentmandarin.com/online.asp.