Learning Chinese A Foundation Course in Mandarin Julian K Wheatley MIT 8 4 Cities population 8 4 1 Zu most very zu gu zu l ng zu h o zu n n sh ji sh ng zu d de ch ngsh sh ji sh ng zu gu de q ch sh ji sh ng zu l ng de d fang the largest city in the world the most expensive car in the world the coldest place in the world Chinese uses the expression zh y containing Classical Chinese zh which in this context functions like modern DE to mean one of zu d de ch ngsh zh y zu h o de Zh nggu m ji zh y one of the largest cities in the world one of the best Chinese rice wines Zh nggu shi w ge nl hu ch ngyu ngu zh y China is one of the 5 permanent member states of the Security Council Note The Chinese equivalents to what are called acronyms in alphabetic languages eg NATO or WTO are shortened or telescoped phrases Thus ol np k Y nd nghu gets shortened to oy nhu nqu n L sh Hu literally security directorship organization gets shortened to nl hu and Sh ji M oy Z zh World Trade Organization gets shortened to Sh m o The same pattern with zh y is also the basis of fractions and percentages s n f n zh y s f n zh y w f n zh r b i f n zh w b i f n zh rsh 1 3 1 4 2 5 5 20 8 4 2 Approximately Large figures are usually approximate There are several expressions that may be used to indicate that a figure is rough Ch budu and d g i have been used in earlier units both placed before the amount D yu about around approximately big about also appears before the amount Zu y u on the otherhand which combines roots for left and right to mean more or less is placed after the amount Sh L n z i K nm ng de d ngbi nr ch budu y u y b i s nsh g ngl The Stone Forest is about 130 kilometers east of Kunming D l z i K nm ng de x bi nr d g i y u s b i g ngl Dali is about 400 kms west of Kunming 13 Learning Chinese A Foundation Course in Mandarin Julian K Wheatley MIT M i ni n d yu y b iw n r n c ng xi ngxi y m nd o B ij ng About a million people emigrate from the countryside to Beijing every year X ch ng z i K nm ng de b ibi nr y u w b i g ngl zu y u Xichang is about 500 kms north of Kunming Notes a Y m n to emigrate move people y m nd o to move to place 8 4 3 Large numbers Apart from the numerals 0 to 9 Chinese also has simple words for five powers of 10 sh 10 b i 100 qi n 1000 w n 10 000 and y 100 000 000 100 million can also be expressed as w nw n for figures from 100 900 million Notably missing is million and it is useful to remember b iw n 100 x 10 000 as million Nowadays large numbers are often written out in Arabic numerals rather than Chinese characters though they are of course read out in Chinese One important rule to note is that in stating large numbers the highest possible power of ten is always used in other words 1 500 is always expressed in Chinese as y qi n w b i rather than as sh w b i The key to forming large numbers then is to keep the five basic powers of 10 in mind and work down from the largest relevant power to the smallest Empty tens and hundreds columns one or more than one that are not final in the figure are signaled by l ng zero 105 902 982 1 201 11 045 45 904 100 000 345 985 1 000 009 1 000 300 8 500 800 11 500 000 140 000 000 1 340 000 000 y b i l ng w ji b i l ng r ji b i b sh r y qi n rb i l ng y y w n y qi n l ng s sh w s w n w qi n ji b i l ng s sh w n s nsh s w n w qi n ji b i b sh w y b iw n l ng ji y b iw n l ng s nb i b b iw sh w n l ng b b i y qi n y b i w sh w n y y s qi nw n sh s ny s qi nw n 14 Learning Chinese A Foundation Course in Mandarin Julian K Wheatley MIT Exercise 4 a Populations One of the more common occasions to cite very large numbers is in talking about population so here are some rough figures to practice with Zh nggu r nk u shi sh s ny cite them as approximations using zu y u place population place population China 1 3 billion Canada 32 million Hong Kong 8 million India 1 069 billion Iraq 24 million Indonesia 231 million Italy 58 million Nigeria 130 million Singapore 4 500 000 Thailand 63 million UK 59 million USA 292 million Beijing 14 million Shanghai 17 million NY 8 million Chicago 2 8 million b Write Chinese equivalents for the following 1 The Jin Mao Building J n M o D sh in Shanghai is one of the tallest buildings d l u in the world And so is the Oriental Pearl Tower D ngf ng M ngzh T the latter is 468 meters tall pictured below 2 Wall Mart W rm is one of the largest companies in the world 3 30 of MIT graduate students are from abroad 4 Although everyone in Chinese class has been abroad about 15 of us have never studied a foreign language before Notes g ngs company g f n y uxi n g ngs corporation stocks limited company m oy g ngs trading corporation trade company One of Shanghai s older streets with the D ngf ng M ngzh T on the P d ng side of the Huangpu River Hu ngp Ji ng in the background 15 Learning Chinese A Foundation Course in Mandarin Julian K Wheatley MIT 8 4 4 Talking about size of cities population a Sh ngh i sh bu shi Zh nggu zu d de Is Shanghai the largest city in China ch ngsh N shu de sh r nk u ma You mean in terms of population Sh Yes D g i Sh ngh i b B ij ng d y di nr T ngshu xi nz i shi y qi n b b iw n I guess Shanghai s a …