Sing along: Mandarin numbers

Numbers are a great place to start when learning Mandarin.

The Mandarin numbers song

A great way to learn the numbers one to ten in Mandarin is to sing along with this song:

It is important to remember that singing in Mandarin changes the tones.

When you want to say you have two of something in Mandarin, you don’t use 二 èr (two).

Instead, you use the Mandarin word 两 liǎng, for example:

两只小狗 Liǎng zhǐ xiǎo gǒu - two dogs

This rule only applies to the number ‘two’.

All numbers higher than ten in Mandarin are built on the basics of one through ten, for example:

To say 11, you would combine ten and one, so 十一 shí yī (ten plus one)
To say 20, you would combine two and ten, so 二十 èr shí (two tens)
To say 31, you would combine three, ten and one, so 三十一 sān shí yī (three tens plus one)