{"id":6033,"date":"2026-06-30T00:13:16","date_gmt":"2026-06-30T00:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/18kenglish.com\/numbers-in-english-taiwan-2026\/"},"modified":"2026-06-30T00:13:16","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T00:13:16","slug":"numbers-in-english-taiwan-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/18kenglish.com\/id\/numbers-in-english-taiwan-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"\u6578\u5b57\u82f1\u6587\u5168\u653b\u7565:\u57fa\u6578\u3001\u5e8f\u6578\u5230\u5927\u6578\u5b57\u5538\u6cd5 (2026) | Numbers in English"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nQuick Answer:<\/strong> \u6578\u5b57\u82f1\u6587 (numbers in English) splits into two types: cardinal numbers (one, two, three) for counting amounts, and ordinal numbers (first, second, third) for ordering. The hardest part for Chinese speakers is large numbers, because English groups digits in threes (thousand, million, billion) while Chinese groups them in fours (\u842c, \u5104). That single mismatch is why \u4e00\u842c is “ten thousand,” \u4e00\u5104 is “one hundred million,” and only \u5341\u5104 is “one billion.” Master the three-vs-four-digit rule and you can read any number out loud.\n<\/div>\n

Ask a fluent Taiwanese professional to read “128,000,000” out loud in English and watch them hesitate for three seconds. The problem is not vocabulary. It is that Chinese counts in units of \u842c and \u5104 (groups of four digits) while English counts in thousand and million (groups of three), and the two systems collide in your head. This guide fixes that for good \u2014 cardinal numbers from 1 to 100, how ordinals work, the large-number conversions that trip everyone up, plus fractions, decimals, money, and phone numbers, all with conversion tables and real examples. By the end you will read numbers on sight instead of doing mental math first.<\/p>\n

\"Learning<\/p>\n

\u6578\u5b57\u82f1\u6587 is the foundation of everyday conversation, work meetings, and exams \u2014 get the rules straight and the memorizing gets easy.<\/em><\/p>\n

\u6578\u5b57\u82f1\u6587\u57fa\u790e:\u57fa\u6578\u8207\u5e8f\u6578 (Cardinal vs Ordinal)<\/h2>\n

Before anything else, separate numbers into two families, because they do completely different jobs. Cardinal numbers answer “how many?” \u2014 one, two, three \u2014 and you use them to count quantities, give your age, and say prices. Ordinal numbers answer “which position?” \u2014 first, second, third \u2014 and you use them to rank things, give dates, and name floors.<\/p>\n

Here is the difference in one sentence: you have three<\/strong> meetings today (cardinal), and the most important one is first<\/strong> (ordinal). Same number 3, two different words, two different meanings. The most common mistake I hear from Taiwanese students is mixing them \u2014 saying “I live on three floor” when it should be “I live on the ketiga<\/strong> floor.” Keep these two families apart in your mind and every rule below falls into place.<\/p>\n

1 \u5230 100 \u600e\u9ebc\u5538:\u57fa\u6578\u82f1\u6587 (Cardinal Numbers)<\/h2>\n

The numbers 1 through 12 are unique words with no pattern, so you simply memorize them: one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve. From 13 onward, a system kicks in and the memorizing stops.<\/p>\n

\"Using<\/p>\n

Thirteen through nineteen follow the pattern “digit + teen”: thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen. The multiples of ten follow “digit + ty”: twenty, thirty, forty (note: no “u”), fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety. For everything in between, join the two parts with a hyphen \u2014 21 is twenty-one, 47 is forty-seven, 99 is ninety-nine.<\/p>\n

There is a trap hiding here that catches Taiwanese speakers more than any other: the -teen versus -ty<\/strong> sound. Fourteen (14) and forty (40), fifteen (15) and fifty (50) differ by a single syllable, and native speakers tell them apart by stress. Fourteen stresses the second half (four-TEEN), while forty stresses the first (FOR-ty). Get the stress wrong when you say a price or a time and the other person hears a number ten times off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
\u6578\u5b57<\/th>\nBahasa inggris<\/th>\n\u6578\u5b57<\/th>\nBahasa inggris<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
13<\/td>\nthirteen<\/td>\n30<\/td>\nthirty<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
14<\/td>\nfourteen<\/td>\n40<\/td>\nforty<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
15<\/td>\nfifteen<\/td>\n50<\/td>\nfifty<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
21<\/td>\ntwenty-one<\/td>\n88<\/td>\neighty-eight<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
100<\/td>\none hundred<\/td>\n101<\/td>\none hundred and one<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

At three digits, British English adds “and” after the hundreds \u2014 101 is “one hundred Dan<\/strong> one” \u2014 while American English often drops it to “one hundred one.” Both are correct. Pick one and stay consistent within a sentence instead of switching back and forth.<\/p>\n

\u5e8f\u6578\u82f1\u6587:\u65e5\u671f\u8207\u6392\u540d (Ordinal Numbers)<\/h2>\n

Ordinals are even simpler than cardinals: in most cases you just add -th<\/strong> to the cardinal. Four becomes fourth, six becomes sixth, ten becomes tenth. Only a handful are irregular \u2014 first (1st), second (2nd), third (3rd), plus fifth (5th, not “fiveth”) and ninth (9th, drop the “e” from nine). For multiples of ten, change the “y” to “ie” and add th: twenty becomes twentieth, forty becomes fortieth.<\/p>\n

\"Ordinal<\/p>\n

Ordinals show up most often in dates. “June 30” is “the thirtieth of June” in British style and “June thirtieth” in American style. In writing, you can shorten them to 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th. Floors, rankings, and centuries all use ordinals too: the ketiga<\/strong> floor, he came in second<\/strong>, the 21st<\/strong> century. To drill dates, days, and months together, see our complete guide to months in English<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u5927\u6578\u5b57\u82f1\u6587:\u5343\u3001\u842c\u3001\u767e\u842c\u3001\u5104\u7684\u63db\u7b97 (Large Numbers)<\/h2>\n

This is the biggest hurdle in \u6578\u5b57\u82f1\u6587 and the exact spot where Taiwanese learners stall. The reason is simple: English changes units every three digits, Chinese changes units every four<\/strong>. The commas in a written number are your guide \u2014 1,000 is thousand, 1,000,000 is million, 1,000,000,000 is billion. Chinese, meanwhile, runs on \u842c (4 zeros), \u5104 (8 zeros), and \u5146 (12 zeros). The two rhythms do not line up, so translating word-for-word guarantees an error.<\/p>\n

\"Stacks<\/p>\n

Two conversions are worth memorizing cold. Chinese \u4e00\u842c is not “one ten-thousand” \u2014 it is ten thousand<\/strong>. Chinese \u4e00\u5104 is one hundred million<\/strong> (literally a hundred millions). And English “one billion” maps to Chinese \u5341\u5104, not \u5104. People who treat billion as \u5104 end up off by a factor of ten, which matters a lot when the number is a budget or a salary. The table below is the single most useful thing to bookmark in this article:<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
tidak<\/th>\n\u963f\u62c9\u4f2f\u6578\u5b57<\/th>\nBahasa inggris<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
\u4e00\u5343<\/td>\n1,000<\/td>\none thousand<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u4e00\u842c<\/td>\n10,000<\/td>\nten thousand<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u5341\u842c<\/td>\n100,000<\/td>\none hundred thousand<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u4e00\u767e\u842c<\/td>\n1,000,000<\/td>\none million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u4e00\u5343\u842c<\/td>\n10,000,000<\/td>\nten million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u4e00\u5104<\/td>\n100,000,000<\/td>\none hundred million<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u5341\u5104<\/td>\n1,000,000,000<\/td>\none billion<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
\u4e00\u5146<\/td>\n1,000,000,000,000<\/td>\none trillion<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

When you actually read a long number out loud, one method never fails: mark the commas, then read group by group from the left<\/strong>. Take 2,345,678. The commas split it into three groups, so from the left it becomes “two million, three hundred forty-five thousand, six hundred seventy-eight.” Each time you hit a comma, say that group’s unit (million, thousand) and read the three digits before it normally. One more rule native speakers always follow: thousand, million, and billion stay singular<\/strong> when used as number units \u2014 it is “five million dollars,” never “five millions dollars.”<\/p>\n