三百五十 (sān bǎi wǔ shí) — three hundred and fifty

Definition

numeral
three hundred and fifty
Easily confused

Examples

  • 三百五十。
    Zhè běn shū yào sān bǎi wǔ shí kuài qián.
    This book costs 350 yuan.
  • 三百五十。
    Wǒ mǎi le sān bǎi wǔ shí gè píng guǒ.
    I bought 350 apples.
  • 三百五十。
    Cóng zhè r dào běi jīng dà yuē sān bǎi wǔ shí gōng lǐ.
    It's about 350 kilometers from here to Beijing.

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
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.

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 →

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