卅 v. 三十 v. 30

[Czech Cara]

So there is this numeral sa4 卅, meaning thirty. When can/cannot it be used? Are there similar alternative expressions fot other numerals. And, consequently, when is it acceptable to use Arabic numbers instead of characters? Thanks for joining...

[cdn_in_bj]

Where did you encounter this? I'd not seen it myself but I asked a friend and he told me it's often used for describing dates.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%8D%85

On a related note, in Shanghainese 廿 is often used in place of 二十 - it's pronounced like nie3 in Shanghainese.

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%E5%BB%BF

[Czech Cara]

I was told it is used formally in documents, was more frequent in 古文. I saw it myself. I also know in 山东淄博， le4 [?] is used instead of 20.

[seamoon]

卅mean thirty,generally ,we don't use it.　It usually appeared in poem or ancient books.Such as "廿四史”“五卅惨案”.

It is created by the ancient poet.Chinese ancient poem often have regular rhyme and antithesis.The ancient poet in order to correspond with the principle of the poem,they turn 三十 into 卅，二十　into 廿（niàn)。

[againstwind]

Just as you said, 卅 and 廿 usually appear in classical Chinese. Nowadays they usually appear in Chinese calendar in which the dates are writen in characters instead of Aribic numbers. Sometimes they also appear in pressworks as ordinal numerals. But we hardly use them in daily life now.

Are there similar alternative expressions fot other numerals

Another I remember is 皕 bi4, which means 200. But it is also used in classical Chinese, rarely at present.

when is it acceptable to use Arabic numbers instead of characters?

I feel there is no strict rule. But remember you have to write characters on cheques or something like that in bank, and the numbers should be 'capitalization'. e.g. 壹贰叁肆伍陆柒捌玖拾佰仟.

[imron]

And don't forget there's also 卌 xì for 40.

[Lawrence]

It is used quite regularly in spoken Cantonese, and the only place I've seen them when written is on dramas where it tells you what episode it is. In cantonese, the ones for 30 and 40 sound almost like 2 syllables to me.

On your question about arabic numerals, I'd say it's about the same as switiching from three to 3.

[trien27]

卅 is a combination with 3 十 characters: That's how they create this character in ancient China. It's pronounced as "sa" in Mandarin and as "sa-ah": (something like saying three-uh) in Cantonese. The other character 廿 pronounced "nian" in Mandarin, which means twenty is pronounced as "ya"(which really don't have another character with same pronounciation) in Cantonese. The character 卌 pronounced "xi" in Mandarin, meaning forty, is pronounced as "sei-ah"(four-uh) in Cantonese. In Mandarin, there's no other pronounciation after forty like this, but in Cantonese, the numeration is similar to "thirty: sa-ah" up until the 90s. So they use 50, wushi = wu (five) [times]* shi(ten), 60, liushi = liu (six) [times] shi (ten), etc... in Mandarin instead.

三十 is modern convention meaning 三("san", three) [times] 十("shi", ten) = 30.

十三 = 十("shi", ten) [plus] 三("san", three) = 13

三十三 = 三("san", three) [times] 十("shi", ten) [plus] 三("san", three) = 33.

In saying eleven in Chinese, you don't pronounce the "yi", one before the tens place value. But because you need to be clear and to not confuse others, it is advisable to pronounce the "yi", one, before the hundreds place value and the same goes for the thousands, ten thousands[you do remember that the Chinese numbering system has a value for wan or 10,000(for users of American English)/10.000 (for users of British and most other countries in Europe, Asia, & Africa, etc...) right?], and so forth.

*[times],[plus] is understood automatically by the Chinese, just like the word fifty, which is vijftig in Dutch = vijf (five) [times] tig (tens suffix after the number 20) --> vieftig = fifty, even though in Norwegian, it's similar to Chinese: (Norwegian) femti = fem (five) [times] ti (ten) = (Chinese) wushi = wu (five) [times]* shi(ten). Femti = wushi = 50. The [times] symbolism is understood by the Dutch and Norwegians much like the Chinese do.

IMHO, since the Norwegian numbering system is so similar to the one used by the Chinese, it's easier to teach Chinese people Norwegian than English with a few exceptions:

four in Norwegian is "fire", fourteen is "fjorten", while forty is fo/rti: o/ = the slash over the letter o, which is a special letter in Norwegian, pronounced "like the French e in Le (the word "the" used for masculine nouns, etc...)", seventy is "sytti", eighty is "oatti"(as if saying "awti" in English? Not "audi", which is Latin word having to do with hearing or the Italian car Audi.), where oa is the letter a with a ring on top, also a special letter in Norwegian, and billion is "milyard".

卅 and those words similar to it in structure are used in making the Chinese lunar calendars, where nie is used from the number 20 up to 29, 卅 is not on the calendar, but people call it 卅, particularly to see whether the last month of the current Chinese year has a 30th day or not (If yes, then the last day is the 30th, if not, then it's the 29th, meaning "a day earlier", or as some people think "one day short") for the Chinese "Year-end banquet/feast to celebrate the coming new year with family and friends".

[djwebb2004]

One of the most frequent uses of sa4 is in the phrase, "五卅运动", the May 30th movement, a political campaign aginst Japnese imperialism in 1925 if i recall