eltehelado

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2007-10-19
Language : None
Posts : 2
Responses : 0
Comments : 0

From :   Not Applicable

Date : 2007-10-28 / 01:41AM

Hi. I just started learning Mandarin and I’m a little confused with the number two. On all the lists of numbers that I’ve seen, the number 2 is “er”. But in certain phrases, like “Wo yao liang ge cai” it says “liang”
Please help :)

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Jenny

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2007-08-05
Language : None
Posts : 0
Responses : 411
Comments : 2
 Jenny Li hotmail.com 
2007-10-28 / 01:39PM

Hi,skylar.two= er2= liang3.

But when we say two persons ,we usually say liang3 ge4 ren2 in chinese. er2 usually used in counting numbers.

Am I right, Benny?

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Responses Owner
 Harmeet hotmail.co.uk 
2007-10-28 / 02:53PM

Yes Jenny that is correct

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managerbenny

Chinese Mandarin :Chinese Mandarin Level
Registered on : 2007-07-25
Language : None
Posts : 2
Responses : 428
Comments : 0
 Benny bennysland.com 
2007-10-29 / 09:51AM

Yes, number two is a little confused sometimes. Jenny thanks you are right. Let me explain it in detail:

1. When number two is used as ordinal number, we only say “er”, for example, “er nian ji” (the second grade), “di er tian” (the second day).

2. In front of measure word, we only use “liang”, for example, “liang zhang zhi” (two piece of paper), “liang ge ren” (two people). So Skylar now you should understand why we say “wo yao liang ge cai”, instead of “er ge cai”.

3. For phone number, only use “er”.

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