一万三千五 (yí wàn sān qiān wǔ) — 13,500 (informal spoken form of 一万三千五百)

Definition

Informal spoken shorthand for 一万三千五百 (13,500) — used in conversation and rough estimates, not in writing. Always abbreviated to the nearest ten, hundred, or thousand in casual speech.

numeral
13,500 (informal spoken form of 一万三千五百)

Examples

  • 一万三千五。
    Zhè tái diàn nǎo yí wàn sān qiān wǔ.
    This computer costs 13,500.
  • 一万三千五。
    Tā yí gè yuè zhuàn yí wàn sān qiān wǔ.
    He earns 13,500 a month.
  • 一万三千五。
    Wǒ men gōng sī yǒu yí wàn sān qiān wǔ yuán gōng.
    Our company has 13,500 employees.

Origin

Characters in this word

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

一 is drawn as one horizontal stroke, marking the number one.

Open 一 →

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 →

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yīone, signifying a number
Sound part声符shēngfú
人
人rén千qiān
The sound has drifted apartThe sound part was a clue two thousand years ago — it often still helps, but not always.

千 pairs 人, whose sound was similar, with 一, a number stroke; the extra line was explained as extension, and a thousand is a number reached by extending counting.

Open 千 →

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 →

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