百 and 千

Once you can count past ninety-nine, Chinese numbers become a tidy building game. Two new place words do all the work up to 9,999: 百 (bǎi) "hundred" and 千 (qiān) "thousand." The logic is more regular than English — there are no odd words like eleven or hundred standing alone — but two habits trip up English speakers immediately: every place word needs an explicit digit in front of it, and the digit for "two" in this range is 两 (liǎng), not 二 (èr). Get those two reflexes right and this whole layer of the number system falls into place.

Every 百 and 千 needs a digit in front

In English you can say "a hundred people" or just "hundreds." In Chinese, 百 and 千 are place words, not nouns — they cannot stand alone. You must state how many hundreds or thousands there are, even when the answer is one. So "one hundred" is 一百 (yìbǎi), never bare 百.

Note the tone change on 一: it is yī in isolation, but becomes yì before 百 (a third-tone syllable) and before 千 (a first-tone syllable). This is the same 一-sandhi you already met with 一 in other combinations — the character never changes, only the spoken tone.

两 not 二 for "two" before 百 and 千

Chinese has two words for "two," and this is where they first collide. When "two" is the leading digit before 百 or 千, you use 两 (liǎng), the "two of a quantity" word — not 二 (èr), the counting digit. So 200 is 两百 (liǎngbǎi) and 2,000 is 两千 (liǎngqiān).

You will still hear 二百 (èrbǎi) for 200, especially in northern China — it is not wrong. But 两千 for 2,000 is close to universal; 二千 sounds stiff and dated in speech. The safe rule for a learner: use 两 before 百 and 千 and you will always sound natural. The full logic of when each word wins is laid out on the 二 vs 两 page — it is worth mastering, because the same choice returns with 万 and 亿.

Building numbers up to 9,999

Chinese assembles a number by naming each place from largest to smallest: thousands, then hundreds, then tens, then ones. Every place with a value gets its digit and its place word; you simply chain them together.

The pattern is beautifully regular — 9,999 is literally "nine-thousand nine-hundred nine-ten nine." Compare English, which must invent the word thousand and glue on irregular teens; Chinese just stacks place words. There is only one complication, and it appears the moment a zero sits inside a number. You cannot simply skip an empty place — 1,005 is not 一千五 (that means 1,500!). Instead the empty place is flagged by a spoken 零 (líng). Because that rule is subtle enough to deserve its own treatment, it lives on the 零 in the middle page.

Numbers above 9,999 do not continue with a word for "ten thousand hundred." Chinese switches to a new place word, 万 (wàn), and starts grouping by ten-thousands rather than thousands — the single biggest difference from English number logic. That whole system is on the 万 and 亿 page.

Common Mistakes

1. Dropping the 一 before 百 or 千. Unlike English "a hundred," Chinese needs the explicit "one."

2. Using 二 instead of 两 before 千. Before 千 (and 万, 亿) the leading "two" is 两.

3. Forgetting the place word. English can say "two thousand three hundred"; Chinese needs both 千 and 百 spelled out — you can't leave 百 implied.

4. Calquing an internal zero. You cannot squeeze the places together when one is empty — 一千五 is 1,500, not 1,005.

Key Takeaways

• 百 (bǎi) = hundred, 千 (qiān) = thousand; each must have a digit in front — 一百, never bare 百.
• 一 is pronounced yì before 百 and 千 (yìbǎi, yìqiān) — the sandhi is spoken only, the character stays 一.
• Use 两 (liǎng), not 二, for a leading "two" before 百 and 千: 两百, 两千.
• Build numbers by stacking places largest-first: 9,999 = 九千九百九十九.
• A zero inside a number is never skipped — it becomes a spoken 零; above 9,999 the system switches to 万.