三百五十万 (sān bǎi wǔ shí wàn) — three million five hundred thousand

Definition

A cardinal number meaning 3,500,000 — read as three million five hundred thousand. Follows the same pattern as other large numerals built from 三百 (300) + 五十 (50) + 万 (10,000).

numeral
three million five hundred thousand

Examples

  • 三百五十万。
    Zhè tào fáng zi de jià gé shì sān bǎi wǔ shí wàn yuán.
    The price of this house is three million five hundred thousand yuan.
  • 三百五十万。
    Qù nián gōng sī yíng yè é dá dào le sān bǎi wǔ shí wàn.
    Last year the company's turnover reached three million five hundred thousand.
  • 三百五十万。
    Zhè zuò chéng shì yǒu sān bǎi wǔ shí wàn rén kǒu.
    This city has a population of three million five hundred thousand.

Origin

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
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.

An older form had a crossed mark between a top bar and a bottom bar. The modern 五 keeps those bars, while the original idea is uncertain.

Open 五 →

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

The early shape 十 was mostly a single vertical stroke, sometimes with a dot, and later gained a horizontal stroke to form a cross. For the number ten, it marked the next digit above one.

Open 十 →

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 →

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