Is 一 pronounced as 'yi' or 'yao'?

[cometrue]

Cometrue I know you don't mean that. I was just teasing and I'm not offended at all.

But I don't understand why you tell Amdir_F to take it easy. All he did was ask a question! To which the answer is: the Taiwanese won't have a clue what you're talking about. Yao is not used (except in gambling and military phone calls maybe).

You know that counting thing on the maths thread? Well' date=' in China, if you're counting and you don't want to say "er-shi-yi", do you say "er-yi" or "er-yao"? Just curious.

Anyway cometrue what's the old word for 0 (dong)? Do you know what character it is?[/quote']

yeah, skylee and holyman are right, it's 洞 hole, and the 1 is 么(YAO) see link below

http://www.vatroc.org/chinese/teach/atp89twr/c2-4_fin.html

and we do say er-yi, not er-yao.

about Amdir_F's question, i think the link will well answer, seems it's a taiwan site.

[cometrue]

just to avoid confusion when saying numbers/digits with a lot of 'ones'. like 911171111, if yi is used then the listen might get confused, its like yi~~~ all the way. so when multiple 'ones' are read/spoken, and used as digits, its probably yao. but a single 'one', and used for counting, its usually yi.

when you say a bunch of numbers, saying yao is always right, but saying yi is not wrong either.

[Guest iunknown]

How to say 111111? if you pronounce like yiyiyiyiyi, nobody know how many 1s you say. So you should say yao when saying a bunch of number. That's what I learned in primary school.:-)

[ala]

Just curious... does Cantonese have an "yao" equivalent? Or is the yat unambiguous enough? How about its yi (two)?

Shanghainese would say 911 as jiu-ich-ich (-ch = glottal stop). yoh (yao) can also be used though, and sandhi makes it sound like yo. However yoh is never used for counting or saying numbers in Shanghainese. The only reason 911 sometimes uses it is because of Mandarin exposure of 911 from the news (Shanghainese has a tendency to adopt by sound, rather than by character semantics, since it is less character aware).

phone number: 011 21 6111 1138: lin-ich-ich, liagn(ni)-ich, roch-ich-ich-ich, ich-ich-sei-pach. yoh is not used. On a possibly related idea, Shanghainese usually replaces liagn 两 for two (二 ni). Although any two that follows a x*10 continues to be pronounced "ni." 22 = nei-ni; 32 = seizach-ni. 102 = ippach-lin-ni. 200 = liagnpach. 6222 = rotchi liagnpach nei-ni. Other Wu dialects continue to use ni throughout: ich ni sei si... How about Cantonese? Is 2 two ever pronounced something other than yi?

[skylee]

In Cantonese,

么 = yiu1 (it is not used to denote the number one)

二 = yi6 (there is only one way to say this word; 兩 leung is used when counting)

一 = yat7 (the pronunciation is very different from 二, but can sometimes be confused with 七 = tsat7)

[smithsgj]

> 么 = yiu1 (it is not used to denote the number one)

What is it used for?

[skylee]

I don't know. I don't think it is commonely used in Cantonese.

Ah yes, there is a term called "十三么" which is a type of 糊 of mahjong (this information is particularly unreliable as I know almost nothing about how to play mahjong).

[geek_frappa]

I don't know. I don't think it is commonely used in Cantonese.

Ah yes' date=' there is a term called "十三么" which is a type of 糊 of mahjong (this information is particularly unreliable as I know almost nothing about how to play mahjong).[/quote']

i think you are correct, because i hear this all the time. also you are correct a lot of the time, so that gives me more confidence.

i'm very bad at mahjong.

maybe forum members can practice playing online at yahooGames

http://games.yahoo.com/games/login2?page=mj

[Guest cavebear]

I think Yi is the kind of the official pronumciation for one.

yao is like a jargon, quite popular in the military first, as the soldiers are from every where speaking different dialects. yi can be mistaken by some for other numbers ( Cantonese may think it is 2?).

it is trure that if you say yiyiyi..it is hard for people to tell how many 1s there are. same for ling (0).

[geek_frappa]

I think Yi is the kind of the official pronumciation for one.

yao is like a jargon' date=' quite popular in the military first, as the soldiers are from every where speaking different dialects. yi can be mistaken by some for other numbers ( Cantonese may think it is 2?).

it is trure that if you say yiyiyi..it is hard for people to tell how many 1s there are. same for ling (0).[/quote']

it's kinda like 'nei' and 'lei' in Canto... i hear more 'lei' now...

[xoyopai]

Shanghainese would say 911 as jiu-ich-ich (-ch = glottal stop). yoh (yao) can also be used though' date=' and sandhi makes it sound like yo. However yoh is never used for counting or saying numbers in Shanghainese. The only reason 911 sometimes uses it is because of Mandarin exposure of 911 from the news (Shanghainese has a tendency to adopt by sound, rather than by character semantics, since it is less character aware).

phone number: 011 21 6111 1138: lin-ich-ich, liagn(ni)-ich, roch-ich-ich-ich, ich-ich-sei-pach. yoh is not used. On a possibly related idea, Shanghainese usually replaces liagn 两 for two (二 ni). Although any two that follows a x*10 continues to be pronounced "ni." 22 = nei-ni; 32 = seizach-ni. 102 = ippach-lin-ni. 200 = liagnpach. 6222 = rotchi liagnpach nei-ni. Other Wu dialects continue to use ni throughout: ich ni sei si... How about Cantonese? Is 2 two ever pronounced something other than yi?[/quote']

I am Shanghaiese. So I could tell you we say 911 as jiu-yao-yao, not jiu-ich-ich. It's the same way for 110 (yao-yao-lin).

But both ich and yao could be accepted when you say phone number.

102 should be "ippach-lin-liang" not "ippach-lin-ni".

The rest I have to say you did pretty good.

[Quest]

phone number: 011 21 6111 1138: lin-ich-ich, liagn(ni)-ich, roch-ich-ich-ich, ich-ich-sei-pach. yoh is not used. On a possibly related idea, Shanghainese usually replaces liagn 两 for two (二 ni). Although any two that follows a x*10 continues to be pronounced "ni." 22 = nei-ni; 32 = seizach-ni. 102 = ippach-lin-ni. 200 = liagnpach. 6222 = rotchi liagnpach nei-ni. Other Wu dialects continue to use ni throughout: ich ni sei si... How about Cantonese? Is 2 two ever pronounced something other than yi?

In Cantonese:

011 21 6111 1138: ling-yut-yut yi-yut look-yut-yut-yut yut-yut-sahm-baht

22: yi-sup-yi, ye-yi, ya-yi

32: sahm-sup-yi, sa-a-yi

102: yut-bahk-ling-yi

200: yi-bahk

6222: look-tsin yi-bahk yi-sup-yi

两 in Cantonese is used the same way it is used in mandarin.

e.g. 两个苹果，两百担米，两千个士兵，两万个座位

but 两十 is never used.

I believe 么 is probably the real word for "yao"(mandarin) and "yiu"(Cantonese) for number one, but it is not used in Cantonese because Cantonese one has a consonant ending, "yut yut yut yut" you can hear clearly how many ones.

[Shi Rui'en]

This is detracting from the topic at hand, but I thought it was somewhat along the same lines.

In a newspaper article I was reading today it showed something that kind of looked like shi(4) from shi(4) jie(4) but without the missing half. I found out later that it was pronounced as "nian" but then later someone told me it was 二　十　。　How exactly does that work? Is this just 書面語？

[skylee]

Did you mean 廿? No, it is not 書面語. It means 20, e.g. 23 is 廿三. We usually use it only when we speak.

[smithsgj]

Did you mean 廿? No, it is not 書面語. It means 20, e.g. 23 is 廿三. We usually use it only when we speak.

I think in Mandarin-speaking areas it's normally just a written thing?

[skylee]

Did you mean 廿? No' date=' it is not 書面語. It means 20, e.g. 23 is 廿三. We usually use it only when we speak.[/quote']

I think in Mandarin-speaking areas it's normally just a written thing?

Now I am not so sure. In cantonese 廿 is "ya6", which is just a contraction of 二十 "yi6 sap9" when you say it fast, I suppose. When we say 23, we can say 二十三 "yi6 sap9 sam1" or 廿三 "ya6 sam1". But in writing, people ususally write 二十, unless there is not enough space or something.

So mandarin-speaking people don't use this word when they talk?

[smithsgj]

> So mandarin-speaking people don't use this word when they talk?

I don't think so (but trust nothing I say now that I've found I got Dongbeihua *totally* wrong!)

廿 nian must be a contraction of ni, old version of 二 I suppose. And the yan part... dunno.

卅 sa=30 (which *is* a contraction in current Mandarin, presumably) and 廿 I've noticed quite a bit in documents. Like in my employment contract for example. I thought it was a bit like the 大寫 numbers from 1 to 10.

[roddy]

I've never come across it in spoken Mandarin.

Roddy

[blob]

interestingly, most of my mainland chinese friends don't know that 廿 is read nian, they just read it as ershi.

[Quest]

廿 and 卅 are not used in spoken Mandarin. Both are still used in spoken Cantonese, but they are never used alone (they are not used for twenty and thirty).