Lesson 9 · Foundational Components

Hundred, Thousand: 百 / 千

Lesson 5/6 got you to 99 using only digits and 十. Two more characters take you into useful territory for travel — hotel prices, train tickets, addresses, budgets — almost none of which stay under 100.

Your two new components

百

bǎi

hundred

6 strokes

千

qiān

thousand

3 strokes

Quick recall — click each card to flip it:

百

bǎi — hundred

千

qiān — thousand

千 is another character that adds a stroke to 人 (rén, "person") though this time in its 亻form:

千qiānthousand

一+亻=千

一 (yī, "one") is the semantic element; 亻rén, Lesson 1) contributes sound, not meaning. The phonetic link between rén and qiān isn't audible in modern Mandarin — this is an Old Chinese sound correspondence, the kind that erodes over three thousand years of pronunciation shift. (Wiktionary: 千)

百 is also 一 (yī, "one"), the semantic element, plus a second piece: 白 (bái, "white") — 白 is purely phonetic here: bái (白) and bǎi (百) share the same syllable, differing only in tone. 白 contributes no sense of "white" to "hundred."

Does 白 come from 日? 白 looks like 日 (sun/day) with a short stroke added at the top, and 百 looks like 白 with 一 added above — so the visual chain 日 → 白 → 百 is tempting. But it's a trap of the same kind as 出: 白 is its own ancient pictograph (traditionally a bright flame tip or thumb nail, sources vary) with no etymological connection to 日 which originally began as a cirlce with a dot in the centre. That said, while the resemblance may be coincidental, it can still be a handy way to remember the character - think of a white ray of light exiting the sun.

十 stands alone; 百 and 千 don't. 十 by itself already means "ten" — no 一 needed. But "hundred" and "thousand" on their own (一百, 一千) require the leading 一: 百 or 千 alone isn't how you say "100" or "1000" in normal use. It's a small, easy-to-forget asymmetry, and exactly the kind of thing worth knowing before you guess wrong on a price tag.

Stroke order

千 — 3 strokes

千 — 3 strokes
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百 — 6 strokes

Top horizontal first, then the inner box:

百 — 6 strokes
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Examples using these components

The same multiply-before/add-after logic from Lesson 5 extends straight through:

一百yī bǎi100

一+百=一百

三百六十sān bǎi liù shí360

三+百+六十=三百六十

一千yī qiān1,000

一+千=一千

三百六十 breaks down exactly like 二十三 did in Lesson 5, just one tier up: (3×100) + (6×10) + 0. Anything you can price, count, or number up to 9,999 is now readable with characters you already know.

Check your recall

Which character means "thousand"?

千 (一+人) uses 人 for what purpose?

To say "100" on its own, you need:

三百六十 (三+百+六+十) represents the number:

Go further

Etymology sources for both characters are linked inline. For the rigorous version, see the Outlier Dictionary of Chinese Characters.

Out in the world: try reading any price, room number, or ticket cost written in characters rather than Arabic numerals — hotel receipts and some traditional menus are the most likely place you'll meet one.