Level 2 · Lesson 11

一二三四五
One to five

一、二、三、四、五。

The first five numbers, the tone each one carries, and counting aloud.

听 · Listen

对话
 王老师 —  大家好！今天我们学一、二、三、四、五。 
Hello everyone! Today we learn one, two, three, four, five.  
 安娜 —  一、二、三、四、五。 
One, two, three, four, five.  
 王老师 —  很好！李明，你说四。 
Very good! Li Ming, you say 'four'.  
 李明 —  四。老师，四很难。 
Sì. Teacher, 'four' is hard.  
 王老师 —  不难。你听：四、四。 
It isn't hard. Listen: sì, sì.  
 李明 —  四！ 
Sì!  
 安娜 —  李明，很好！ 
Li Ming, very good!  
 王老师 —  好！大家，一、二、三、四、五！ 
Good! Everyone: one, two, three, four, five!  

讲解 · Explanation

一、二、三、四、五。

Five words, five tones to place. 一 yī is high and level. 二 èr falls, and it has no initial consonant at all — the whole syllable is one r-coloured vowel. 三 sān is high and level like 一. 四 sì falls like 二, but it starts with a plain s. 五 wǔ dips low and comes back up. Say them slowly in an even rhythm, one beat each; in writing, the small comma 、 separates the items of a list.

一。星期一。一天。

一 is the one number whose tone moves. Counting aloud, in dates, and at the end of a phrase it keeps its own first tone: 一、二、三, and 星期一 xīngqīyī (Monday, three lessons from now). But when 一 leads straight into another word, the tone changes: before a first, second or third tone it becomes yì — 一天 yì tiān, 'one day' — and before a fourth tone it becomes yí. On this site we always write the tone you actually say.

我学一、二、三、四、五。

A Chinese number never changes shape. There is no plural ending, no ordinal ending, nothing to add or drop: 五 is 五 when you count sheep, when you say five o'clock and when you name the fifth day of the week. Learn these five now and the clock, the weekdays and the dates of the next four lessons are already half learned.

生词 · Vocabulary

词	Meaning	注 · Note
一	one	yī when counting; yì or yí before another word
二	two	no initial consonant
三	three	high level tone
四	four	plain s, falling tone
五	five	dipping third tone

练习 · Practice

一、二、______、四、五。 Fill in the missing number.

四读什么？ How is 四 pronounced?

老师说 sān，你写什么？ The teacher says sān. Which character do you write?

排一排。 Put the five numbers in order, one to five.

一、二、三、四、五 Match each number to its meaning.

用一用 · Use it

一、二、三、四、五。五、四、三、二、一。

Count aloud from one to five, then straight back down to one — three times, keeping the beat even. Then count five things around you: five fingers, five steps, five books on a shelf. Say the number, not the English. If one syllable comes out flat, it is almost always 四 or 五, so give those two an extra round on their own.