二百 vs. 两百

xiaophil

May 15, 2012, 03:15 PM posted in I Have a Question

Hi there CPod community. Long time no post.

I have been told in the past, I want to even say in a qingwen episode, that 二百 and 两百 are both permissible. But recently a Taiwan person told me that only 两百 is correct. Do any of you have any idea of who is right? Perhaps this is a difference between mainland and Taiwan? Perhaps nobody can agree on the convention?

Thanks!

cassielin

May 15, 2012, 04:29 PM

Hi xiaophil,

when it comes to the number for money, we only use“两” to describe 2 in Mandarin. However, when it comes to the number for year, we only use "二" to describe 2 in Mandarin.

For example, 2012年=二零一二年 2000元=两千元

Hope that will helps.

Cassie

cjhawk7

Except when you're in Sichuan and they mysteriously slip in the 二百块钱 either out of ignorance or some kind of epic scale inside joke to confuse all foreign learners of Chinese. Is it correct? Probably not. Is it acceptable, understood, and still used by many people in the outlands? Yes.

xiaophil

Hi Cassielin

Thanks for your reply. I am leaning towards the 两百块 being the one-and-only correct answer as you said. That said, if you or anyone else has the time, check out QW0020 at about 4:40. Connie clearly says that both 二百 and 两百 are acceptable. Is this because they weren't talking about using a measure word, such as 快?

Thanks for your input . You probably are right.

darkstar94

I think they are both acceptable, Chinese is spoken so widely that people will think that there are "set rules", like even in English people can't agree upon whether or not we should say the t in often or not. I've heard that sometimes they might avoid 二百 to avoid the whole 二百五 problem haha.

xiaophil

Darkstar, I think that there probably is a somewhat consensus that 二百 is wrong, but perhaps it is on par with "ain't", a word that is looked down upon, but nevertheless is commonly used in some quarters. My wife, a Chinese, had no problem with it at all.

I'm actually a teacher, so I think I will stick with 两百 as it appears nobody has a problem with it.

PS: I meant to say in my comment above, "cjhawk7, thanks for your input."

xiaophil

Any other natives or whoever got an ideas to share?