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三百万 (sān bǎi wàn) — three million

Definition

numeral
three million

Examples

  • 三百万。
    Zhè ge chéng shì yǒu sān bǎi wàn rén kǒu.
    This city has a population of three million.
  • 三百万。
    Tā zhōng le sān bǎi wàn dà jiǎng.
    He won a grand prize of three million.
  • 三百万。
    Gōng sī qù nián zhuàn le sān bǎi wàn yuán.
    The company earned three million yuan last year.

Origin

Compound word
构词法gòucífǎ
偏正piānzhèngModifier + head

The first part narrows down the second: it says what kind of thing the head is.

三sānthree
百万million
百bǎihundred万wànten thousand
偏正Modifier + head

三 gives three, 百 gives hundred, and 万 gives ten thousand, together naming three million.

Characters in this word

An abstract idea shown by a mark or a diagram rather than by a picture of an object.

三 is drawn as three parallel strokes, like 一 with one stroke and 二 with two.

Open 三 →

Most characters — around four in five — are built this way: one part hints at the meaning, the other at the pronunciation.

Meaning part形符xíngfú
一一yī
Sound part声符shēngfú
白
白bái百bǎi
Same sound today

百 combines 一, which carries the number meaning, with 白, which provides the sound.

Open 百 →

A drawing of the thing itself, worn down over three thousand years into a few strokes.

This origin belongs to the traditional form 萬; 万 is its simplified writing.

For 万, the form 萬 was originally a picture of a scorpion, later borrowed for its sound to write 'ten thousand'; the scorpion picture is unrelated to that number.

Open 万 →
Appears in
Numbers & Counting

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