The Numbers

Trust us on this: nothing will kill that prospective career in Chinese finance faster than an inability to count to ten. Gesticulation just isn't what it used to be, and given that mandarin is a language where the numbers for four and ten are almost as easy to mix up as the Beijing Olympic Mascots, we think you've got a recipe for disaster on your hands if you don't have a solid grasp of the fundamentals.

So in this lesson we cover the absolute basics of numbers: how to pronounce them, what tones to use and how to string single digits together to make bigger numbers that sound more impressive. This isn't groundbreaking stuff unless you don't already know it, in which case it is groundbreaking stuff. So listen in and let's put this counting thing behind us.