HSK 4 Grammar 07: Numbers
HSK · HSK · HSK 4 หัวข้อ 7 2:58 การบรรยายภาษาอังกฤษ · คำบรรยายภาษาอังกฤษ + 中文 ลอยตัวบนภาพ
บท
Transcript
Chinese builds fractions back to front. The denominator plus fen zhi plus the numerator: the bottom number comes first. Percentages need no new machinery, because bai fen zhi means out of a hundred, so percent is just another fraction. The one rule that gets tested every time is the order, and behind the order sits a habit of the whole language: big to small, the whole before the slice, the year before the month.
The structure is denominator, fen zhi, numerator. Zhege wenjian yijing xiazai le san fenzhi er, this file is already two-thirds downloaded. Wo de shouji zhi you baifenzhi wu le, my phone is down to five percent. Read fen zhi as out of: si fen zhi san unpacks as of four parts, three, which is three quarters. Percent is bai fen zhi, out of a hundred, plus the number, so bai fen zhi wu shi is fifty percent, and bai fen zhi wu is five. Half has its own shape, er fen zhi yi, one of two parts.
Your battery is comfortably at eighty percent, and the pattern builds the report for you. Out of a hundred, eighty: baifen zhi bashi. Wrapped in a sentence: wo de shouji hai you baifenzhi bashi, my phone still has eighty percent. The check is always the same, and it is the same check for ordinary fractions: the bottom number, here the hundred inside bai fen zhi, arrives before the top number, the eighty. The frame never flips for percent.
The classic exam item is the flip. Three quarters is si fen zhi san, never san fen zhi si, because reversing the order flips the fraction, and san fen zhi si is four thirds. When a listening question plays a fraction, put your pen on the first number you hear, because the first number is the bottom. And notice the habit behind the rule, big to small: the year before the month, the month before the day, the whole before the part. Fractions are one more instance of a pattern the whole language follows.
Pause and check both. In si fen zhi san, the denominator is si, four, because the first number is the bottom. And san fen zhi er is two thirds, three on the bottom, two on top, while its flip, er fen zhi san, is three halves. The review's remaining items: twenty-five percent is bai fen zhi ershi wu, out of a hundred, twenty-five, and the two-thirds-finished download is zhege wenjian yijing xiazai le san fen zhi er. Bottom first, top last, every time.