百分之 and 点: Percentages and Decimals in Chinese
Two small structures cover almost every number you will meet in a price, a statistic or a weather report: 百分之 (bǎi fēn zhī) for percentages and 点 (diǎn) for decimal points. Both are simple. One of them runs backwards relative to English, and that is where listeners lose the thread.
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百分之 puts the whole before the part
百分之 reads literally as "of a hundred parts". The number comes after it, not before:
| English | Chinese | Literal order |
|---|---|---|
| 20 percent | 百分之二十 | of-100-parts, 20 |
| 50 percent | 百分之五十 | of-100-parts, 50 |
| 3 percent | 百分之三 | of-100-parts, 3 |
English says the quantity then the frame. Chinese says the frame then the quantity. For a listener this is genuinely helpful once you adjust: 百分之 arrives first and tells you a percentage is coming, so you are ready for the number instead of being surprised by a trailing "percent".
Fractions follow the same shape with 分之: 三分之一 is one third, said as "of three parts, one". Denominator first, numerator second, which is again the reverse of English.
点 is the decimal point, and what follows it is digits
点 means "point" and works exactly like the English decimal point, with one rule that catches people: everything after 点 is read digit by digit, not as a number.
| Number | Chinese | After the point |
|---|---|---|
| 3.5 | 三点五 | five |
| 89.27 | 八十九点二七 | two, seven (not twenty-seven) |
| 0.05 | 零点零五 | zero, five |
So 89.27 is 八十九点二七: the integer part keeps its unit words, and the decimal part is a bare digit string. Hearing èr qī and writing 27 gives you 89.27, which is right, but hearing it and thinking "twenty-seven" will mislead you the moment there is a zero involved.
Sandhi note: the pinyin above reads bā shí jiú diǎn èr qī. 九 is normally jiǔ, third tone, but before another third tone (点, diǎn) it shifts to second. That is regular third-tone sandhi, not a typo.
Putting them together
Percentages take decimals happily, and the two rules simply stack: the frame first, then an integer, then 点, then digits.
Read it in order and it decodes itself: 百分之 (a percentage is coming) + 四十九 (49) + 点 (decimal) + 五 (5). Nothing needs to be held in memory and rearranged, which is exactly why word order matters more for listening than for reading.
The discount trap: 折 is not a percentage
One structure looks like a percentage and is not. 折 (zhé) states the share of the price you pay, in tenths, not the share you save.
打七折 means you pay seven tenths: a 30 percent discount. Read as a percentage it would suggest 7 percent, which is off by a factor of ten in the wrong direction. If a shop sign and your mental arithmetic disagree wildly, this is usually why.
成 (chéng): percentages in tenths
There is a third structure worth recognising, common in speech and news: 成 (chéng) means one tenth, so a number plus 成 is that many tenths.
| Chinese | Means | As a percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 八成 | eight tenths | 80 percent |
| 九成 | nine tenths | 90 percent |
| 一成 | one tenth | 10 percent |
八成 also does duty as "most likely" in casual speech, roughly the way English uses "nine times out of ten". Note the relationship to discounts: 成 and 折 both work in tenths, but 成 states a share of a whole while 折 states the share of a price you still pay.
Where these show up
- Prices and sales. 折 on signage, 百分之 in written terms and formal speech.
- Weather. Temperatures are decimals constantly: 三十六点五度 is 36.5 degrees.
- Statistics and news. Growth rates, interest rates and survey results all use 百分之.
- Measurements. Heights, weights and distances take 点 the same way.
How to make it automatic
The reversal is the whole difficulty, and it is a listening problem rather than a grammar one. Reading 百分之二十 on a page gives you time to flip it. Hearing it in a sentence does not, and if you spend that moment flipping, you miss what the percentage was about.
The fix is repetition until the frame-first order feels normal: enough spoken percentages and decimals that 百分之 stops being a signal to translate and becomes a signal to just listen for digits.
Train percentages and decimals by ear
Countfu plays real Mandarin rates and numbers, you type the digits. Free on the App Store.
Get countfu on the App StoreRelated reading
- Chinese Discount Numbers: Why 打八折 Means 20% Off: the 折 system in full, and why it inverts.
- Chinese Prices by Ear: Kuài, Máo, and Real Shop Talk: the money ladder these rates get applied to.
- Why 三百五 Means 350 in Chinese, Not 305: the elision rule that shortens spoken amounts.
Frequently asked questions
How do you say percent in Chinese?
Use 百分之 (bǎi fēn zhī) followed by the number. 20 percent is 百分之二十 and 50 percent is 百分之五十. The frame comes first and the number second, which is the reverse of English word order.
How are decimals read in Chinese?
The decimal point is 点 (diǎn), and everything after it is read digit by digit. 89.27 is 八十九点二七 (bā shí jiú diǎn èr qī): the integer part keeps its unit words, then two and seven are spoken separately, not as twenty-seven.
Is 打七折 the same as 7 percent?
No, and the difference is large. 打七折 means you pay seven tenths of the price, so it is 30 percent off. The 折 system states the share you pay, not the share you save, and it is unrelated to 百分之.
How do you say 0.05 in Chinese?
零点零五 (líng diǎn líng wǔ). The leading zero is spoken, and because digits after 点 are read individually, the second zero is spoken too. This is why treating the decimal part as a whole number goes wrong when zeros are involved.
How do you say fractions in Chinese?
With 分之, denominator first: 三分之一 is one third and 四分之三 is three quarters. It is the same frame-before-quantity order as 百分之, which is literally "of one hundred parts".