Hokkien numerals
| 1 | 2 | 3 / 三 | 4 / 四 | 5 / 五 | 6 / 六 | 7 / 七 | 8 / 八 | 9 / 九 | 10 / 十 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peh | cit (蜀) | nng (兩) | svaf | six | go | lak | chid | pøeq | kao | zap |
| Buun | id (一) | ji (二) | safm | sux | gvor | liok | pad | kiuo | sip |
Numbers in Taiwanese
There are two sets of numbers in Taiwanese: colloquial style (peh) and the literary style (buun). The colloquial readings come from Ancient Han Chinese/Old Chinese (Kor Harnguo) (ca. 0 BCE/CE), whereas the literary readings come from Han Chinese during the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279) (Kixntai Harnguo). Nowadays, the peh style is used most, whereas the buun style is mostly used to recite telephone numbers (tiexn'oe). See Buun-peh-i-thak for more info.
Colloquial
cit, nng, svaf, six, go, lak, chid, peq, kao 🔊
These are generally used for counting objects and will usually be followed by a classifier and thus obey tone sandhi. For example, cidtaai tiexnsi 🔊 (one television), or Cidbøea Hii (one fish).
Note: ji 🔊 is used in the ones, tens and hundreds place, whereas nng is used for multiples of numbers 100 and greater. This is analogous to the use of 二 and 兩 in Mandarin.
Literary
0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. 🔊
Telephone digits are grouped according to certain rules and tone sandhi is applied.
For example, 3945068 🔊 is read: safm kiuo sux, gvor khoxng, liok pad (see Khax Tiexn'oe).
- Ordinal numbers: only "1st" and "2nd" use literary, the rest use colloquial