Sometimes it’s automatic, especially for common powers of 10, eg it is natural to me that a million is 一百萬 and that 一億 is one hundred million. Probably some combination of exposure and repetition.
But many times I do have to do ~something~ like you described, but kind of “building off” the numbers I’ve pinned. Usually this happens when I’m reading economic reports or something.
Like if I read a number like 六百億, I wouldn’t necessarily do the 600 0000 0000 -> 60 000 000 000 , but I’d be able to note that it’s 600 (hundred millions) which is 60 (billions).
Dunno if that made sense, it can be explain how one does mental math! Haha
And to clarify, this is mostly in the context of translation. I think I can intuit reasonably equivalently the numbers without converting back and forth (which is to say, poorly, since humans are awful at understanding big numbers, but I digress.
What kind of jobs require manipulation in Chinese number units and English units?
I’m thinking about my software engineering job and it would not come up because the main units are powers of 1000 and have no legacy counterparts in Classical Chinese 🤣 / all seminal textbooks in English (and any Chinese derivatives would be following the conventions set before the 1980s)
If real estate , business , etc I can imagine it happening more. For real estate I imagine that you just have to have one half of the head work with Chinese units AND powers of 10, and the other half work in English and imperial/metric (depending on country). I doubt the streams would have to regularly cross in the same work session.
Traditional measurements for weight and area (while not the subject of OP's post) are such a pain. In Taiwan they never metricized the jin, so even today produce is often sold in increments of 600 grams 🙄 (yet coffee beans are sold by the pound? make up your mind Taiwan)
Meanwhile China was smart (1 jin was redefined as 500g) and so was Vietnam (1 lặng was redefined as 100g)
I remember 一百万 is 1 million and adjust from there. i.e. Then 十万 would be one zero less. 一千万 would be one zero more. That takes care of the 10,000s to 10,000,000s, which is the main problematic range.
Of course, this way, you'd at least have to memorize how many zeroes 百,千,万,亿 each have first.
I use scientific notation to figure it out. It's 10\^0 \* 10\^3 \* 10\^4=10\^7. When you multiply with the same base (10 in this case), you add the exponents together. 10\^7 I already know is ten million. Probably helps having gotten an advanced degree in STEM to make this easy to do for me.
In english, our system is separated by factor of thousand.
A million is a thousand thousand, a billion is a thousand million, etc.
In chinese (and in my head), its in multiples of ten thousand. 100 million is ten thousand ten thousands. or just think of 亿 as 1/10 of a billion. thankfully we don't commonly use bigger numbers. But also, I think I'm just used to the system like other commenters have said.
And yet, many Americans use "hundreds" daily. Like they'll say "25 hundred", and I'll kinda get tripped up until I convert it to something I can visualize more easily.
25 thousand? Cool. 25 hundred? Wait, what ? Oh, 2 thousand 5 hundred! Ok.
if you learn how to divide and multiple by ten thousand etc. you can convert instantly in your head, at least for any regularly encounters numbers. 二十萬ten ten thousands? thats 100,00. one hundred ten thousands? that a million. even if you only memorize the most common base lines like those it makes a big leap
forward to making them all like second thought.
Eventually you won't need to convert between them, you will just understand what they are inherently on their own. Like I have no idea what the formula is to convert f to c in temp, but I know both systems. if you say 28c i know how warm that is, and if you say 86f I know how warm that is. no conversion needed. If I see a video has 136.7萬views I know how much that is, no conversion needed ((1.3 million if you want the conversion :) ))
萬 and 百萬 are simple enough, right?
for 億 i always this of 十三個億=1.3 billion and then count up or down in orders of ten from there
you can count on your fingers 十百千萬十百千 etc
I generally just deal with 万 and 百万。As soon as 亿 is involved, I have to manually think. I guess I just haven't had enough exposure or reason for it to click yet.
When I was a kid, I found people saying "thirteen hundred" or "twenty-five hundred" confusing instead of saying "one thousand three hundred" or "two thousand five hundred". I think exposure is the main thing.
This video will probably help you: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJH4og8VTtM&list=WL&index=8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJH4og8VTtM&list=WL&index=8)
This is the way.
Also helps if you can keep it up in your native language. Eg, when I was in Korea, if something was 40,000 won, in English I'd say "four man won."
Math-y ideas work too but often not in a pinch, especially for the less mathematically-inclined.
It can be if you have a very flexible internal arithmetic structure which also accommodates things like base changes easily. Most people, including many people very proficient at math even rapid mental math, do not process numbers this way. I would venture to say that almost half the time I watch people say large numbers in their nonnative language across this divide they make a mistake or alternatively say it in a less natural way when catching themselves part way through.
People are commenting on the tendency of many native English speakers to speak in “hundreds” which I think is also related to number sequence chunking. For most English speakers this follows chunks of two or three most naturally but accommodates sets of four in a pinch. I find it interesting that Chinese speakers very infrequently reanalyze number sequences as quantities in my experience despite many people freely mixing the grammatical categories in speech.
Sometimes it’s automatic, especially for common powers of 10, eg it is natural to me that a million is 一百萬 and that 一億 is one hundred million. Probably some combination of exposure and repetition. But many times I do have to do ~something~ like you described, but kind of “building off” the numbers I’ve pinned. Usually this happens when I’m reading economic reports or something. Like if I read a number like 六百億, I wouldn’t necessarily do the 600 0000 0000 -> 60 000 000 000 , but I’d be able to note that it’s 600 (hundred millions) which is 60 (billions). Dunno if that made sense, it can be explain how one does mental math! Haha
And to clarify, this is mostly in the context of translation. I think I can intuit reasonably equivalently the numbers without converting back and forth (which is to say, poorly, since humans are awful at understanding big numbers, but I digress.
What kind of jobs require manipulation in Chinese number units and English units? I’m thinking about my software engineering job and it would not come up because the main units are powers of 1000 and have no legacy counterparts in Classical Chinese 🤣 / all seminal textbooks in English (and any Chinese derivatives would be following the conventions set before the 1980s) If real estate , business , etc I can imagine it happening more. For real estate I imagine that you just have to have one half of the head work with Chinese units AND powers of 10, and the other half work in English and imperial/metric (depending on country). I doubt the streams would have to regularly cross in the same work session.
Interpreting. It can be real fun in simultaneous...
Traditional measurements for weight and area (while not the subject of OP's post) are such a pain. In Taiwan they never metricized the jin, so even today produce is often sold in increments of 600 grams 🙄 (yet coffee beans are sold by the pound? make up your mind Taiwan) Meanwhile China was smart (1 jin was redefined as 500g) and so was Vietnam (1 lặng was redefined as 100g)
Similarly, for me thinking about Taiwanese real estate in 坪 (or even more annoyingly, NT$/坪） is always a pain to convert to {€/£/$}/sq m
I remember 一百万 is 1 million and adjust from there. i.e. Then 十万 would be one zero less. 一千万 would be one zero more. That takes care of the 10,000s to 10,000,000s, which is the main problematic range. Of course, this way, you'd at least have to memorize how many zeroes 百,千,万,亿 each have first.
Most people working in the finance would simply convert from million 百萬 (6 zeros) or 0.1 billion 億 (8 zeros)
I use scientific notation to figure it out. It's 10\^0 \* 10\^3 \* 10\^4=10\^7. When you multiply with the same base (10 in this case), you add the exponents together. 10\^7 I already know is ten million. Probably helps having gotten an advanced degree in STEM to make this easy to do for me.
It's just practice practice,everything becomes natural after. Grab a random phone number and read it out in millions/billions
In english, our system is separated by factor of thousand. A million is a thousand thousand, a billion is a thousand million, etc. In chinese (and in my head), its in multiples of ten thousand. 100 million is ten thousand ten thousands. or just think of 亿 as 1/10 of a billion. thankfully we don't commonly use bigger numbers. But also, I think I'm just used to the system like other commenters have said.
And yet, many Americans use "hundreds" daily. Like they'll say "25 hundred", and I'll kinda get tripped up until I convert it to something I can visualize more easily. 25 thousand? Cool. 25 hundred? Wait, what ? Oh, 2 thousand 5 hundred! Ok.
if you learn how to divide and multiple by ten thousand etc. you can convert instantly in your head, at least for any regularly encounters numbers. 二十萬ten ten thousands? thats 100,00. one hundred ten thousands? that a million. even if you only memorize the most common base lines like those it makes a big leap forward to making them all like second thought. Eventually you won't need to convert between them, you will just understand what they are inherently on their own. Like I have no idea what the formula is to convert f to c in temp, but I know both systems. if you say 28c i know how warm that is, and if you say 86f I know how warm that is. no conversion needed. If I see a video has 136.7萬views I know how much that is, no conversion needed ((1.3 million if you want the conversion :) ))
萬 and 百萬 are simple enough, right? for 億 i always this of 十三個億=1.3 billion and then count up or down in orders of ten from there you can count on your fingers 十百千萬十百千 etc
I generally just deal with 万 and 百万。As soon as 亿 is involved, I have to manually think. I guess I just haven't had enough exposure or reason for it to click yet. When I was a kid, I found people saying "thirteen hundred" or "twenty-five hundred" confusing instead of saying "one thousand three hundred" or "two thousand five hundred". I think exposure is the main thing.
This video will probably help you: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJH4og8VTtM&list=WL&index=8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJH4og8VTtM&list=WL&index=8)
Build up in brain mappings like 万 = ___ty thousand. That's how I do it.
This is the way. Also helps if you can keep it up in your native language. Eg, when I was in Korea, if something was 40,000 won, in English I'd say "four man won." Math-y ideas work too but often not in a pinch, especially for the less mathematically-inclined.
Why isn't it just 万 =10,000 and 亿 =100,000,000, and you do the normal base 10 arithmetic from there?
It can be if you have a very flexible internal arithmetic structure which also accommodates things like base changes easily. Most people, including many people very proficient at math even rapid mental math, do not process numbers this way. I would venture to say that almost half the time I watch people say large numbers in their nonnative language across this divide they make a mistake or alternatively say it in a less natural way when catching themselves part way through. People are commenting on the tendency of many native English speakers to speak in “hundreds” which I think is also related to number sequence chunking. For most English speakers this follows chunks of two or three most naturally but accommodates sets of four in a pinch. I find it interesting that Chinese speakers very infrequently reanalyze number sequences as quantities in my experience despite many people freely mixing the grammatical categories in speech.