Measures, money and proportions

To measure is 量 liáng, in the second tone. Read liàng, in the fourth, the same character becomes a noun, quantity, which turns up in 重量 zhòngliàng, weight, and 容量 róngliàng, capacity. It is the same mechanism as for 数 on the page Numbers and measure words: a verb and a noun that only the tone tells apart. The dimensions of an object are its 尺寸 chǐcùn, literally “foot-inch”.

China uses the metric system, whose units are formed with 公 gōng, “common”: 公里 gōnglǐ the kilometre, 公斤 gōngjīn the kilo, 公分 gōngfēn the centimetre. But the old units have not disappeared, they have been rounded off. The 斤 jīn is 500 grams, the 里 lǐ 500 metres, the 尺 chǐ a third of a metre. At the market everything is sold by the 斤 (sentence 2), and the price on display is for this Chinese pound, not for a kilo. Careful: in Taiwan and Hong Kong, the 斤 weighs about 600 grams.

People are weighed in 斤 too (sentence 19, and the page Appearance). The first time you hear someone say they weigh “a hundred and twenty”, it takes a moment to divide by two. A tenth of a 斤, 50 grams, is called 两 liǎng, like the “two” of the previous page. It is in 两 that you order dumplings and baijiu, the white spirit. And to ask for two of them, you say 二两 èr liǎng, never 两两 (thankfully).

For money, there are the words people write and the words people say. On banknotes and price tags: 元 yuán, 角 jiǎo, 分 fēn. In people’s mouths: 块 kuài, “piece”, and 毛 máo, “hair”. One 元 is ten 角 and a hundred 分. In speech, the last unit is dropped: 三块五 sān kuài wǔ is three yuan fifty. The 分 is hardly used any more, and coins themselves are becoming rare now that everything is paid for by phone (the bank and currency exchange are on the page Services and formalities).

You ask the price with 多少钱 duōshao qián (sentence 1). At the market you are more likely to hear 怎么卖 zěnme mài, “how is it sold?”, and the answer gives the price per 斤. 价格 jiàgé is the word on price tags, 价钱 jiàqian the word of conversation. Note the reading of 便宜 piányi: 便 is read pián here, and biàn everywhere else, or nearly. As for discounts, they are counted the opposite way from ours: 打八折 dǎ bā zhé, literally “to break to eight tenths”, means that you pay 80% of the price. The reduction is 20%, not 80.

Fractions are said backwards too. 三分之一 sān fēn zhī yī, “of three parts, one”: the denominator comes first. Percentages follow the same pattern: 百分之五 bǎi fēn zhī wǔ, “of a hundred parts, five” (sentence 10). 倍 bèi calls for more caution. 是去年的两倍 shì qùnián de liǎng bèi is double last year’s figure (sentence 15). But 增加了两倍 zēngjiā le liǎng bèi, “to have increased by two times”, means in principle that the figure has tripled. In principle only: in practice, many Chinese understand “doubled”. It is not obvious, and when the figure matters, it is better to have it spelled out.

Chinese has a great many words for “roughly”. 多 duō, placed after a round number, adds “and a bit”: 三十多 sānshí duō, thirty-odd. 大约 dàyuē and 大概 dàgài go before the number, 上下 shàngxià after it. And there is 差不多 chàbuduō, “the gap is not great”, which does for everything: almost, more or less, that will do. In 1919 Hu Shi turned it into a character, Mr 差不多, for whom white sugar and brown sugar are all the same, and who ends up dying of it (the text is short, and Chinese schoolchildren are made to read it).

In everyday words, weight is used to express importance: 重 zhòng “heavy” ⟶ 重要 zhòngyào important, 重视 zhòngshì to take seriously. Two opposites side by side give the name of the dimension: 轻重 qīngzhòng, “light-heavy”, weight; 长短 chángduǎn, “long-short”, length. 一字千金 yí zì qiān jīn comes from a story told by Sima Qian: Lü Buwei had his book posted at the gate of the capital and promised a thousand gold pieces to anyone who could change a single character in it. The last sentence on the page comes from Chapter 11 of the Analects of Confucius. Zigong asks which of two disciples is the better; one goes too far, the other not far enough. Confucius answers in four characters: 过犹不及 guò yóu bù jí. Too much is no better than not enough.

Click on any character on the page: its stroke order appears stroke by stroke, with the arrow showing the direction of the line.