Basic Mandarin Chinese - Reading & Writing Textbook. Cornelius C. Kubler

      Automobile license plate from Taipei

      1. 十

      2. 七

      3. 六

      4. 九

      5. 八

      6. 六

      7. 七

      8. 十

      9. 九

      10. 八

       B. TELEPHONE NUMBERS

      Read out loud each of the following telephone numbers.

      一、三 九 五 九 四 一 三 九

      二、八 六 一 二 四

      三、七 一 九 二 六 八 七 九

      四、五 七 八 九 二 六

      五、九 六 八 四 一 八 七 三

      六、二 二 八 五 六 七 八 五

       C. MISCELLANEOUS NUMBERS

      Read out loud each of the following series of numbers. Some of them have special meanings and usages, for which you can consult the Notes at the end of this lesson.

      一、一 三 五

      二、二 四 六

      三、一 二 三 四 五

      四、五 四 三 二 一

      五、六 七 八 九 十

      六、十 九 八 七 六

      七、一 二 三 四 五 六 七 八 九 十

      八、十 九 八 七 六 五 四 三 二 一

      九、二 四 六 八 十

      十、一 三 五 七 九

       D. SURNAMES

      Read out loud each of the following common Chinese surnames.

      一、林

      二、王

       Notes

      B1. CHINESE PUNCTUATION. While Chinese, like Latin, was originally written without any punctuation marks, and later in its history only with a kind of period (。) that served as an all-purpose punctuation mark, it has over the last 150 years adopted the punctuation system of Western languages, even though there exist a few differences in usage. Indeed, China has gone the West one better by creating several additional punctuation marks that do not exist in Western languages. One of these is a kind of inverted comma called the 顿号 ( 頓號 ) dùnhào that looks like this: 、 One use of the dùnhào is after numbers, for example: 一、二、三、

      C1. 一三五 could either represent the numbers 1 3 5 or stand for the first, third, and fifth days of the week, much like the English abbreviation “MWF.”

      C2. 二四六 could either represent the numbers 2 4 6 or stand for the second, fourth, and sixth days of the week, like English “T Th Sat.”