Money & Finance: Vocabulary for money, currency, and basic finance

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Pinyin is the standard romanisation used to show Mandarin pronunciation using the Latin alphabet. You’ll often see tone marks on the vowels to show the four tones (plus the neutral tone), for example mā / má / mǎ / mà / ma. “Numbered pinyin” shows the same tones using a number after the syllable instead of tone marks, for example ma1 / ma2 / ma3 / ma4 / ma (sometimes written as ma5 for the neutral tone). Numbered pinyin is handy when you can’t easily type tone marks, while tone-mark pinyin is usually easier to read once you’re used to it.

钱

• Pinyin: qián
• Numbered pinyin: qian2
• English translation: money

钱包

• Pinyin: qián bāo
• Numbered pinyin: qian2 bao1
• English translation: wallet

元

• Pinyin: yuán
• Numbered pinyin: yuan2
• English translation: Yuan (Chinese currency)

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