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HSK 2

百

hundred

numberneutral
百
bǎi3rd tone

HSK level

1
2
3
4
5
6
Pinyin
bǎi
Part of speech
number
Level
HSK 2
Strokes
6
Register
neutral

Stroke order for 百

百 is written with 6 strokes. The animation replays automatically.

What does 百 mean?

百 (bǎi) is the Chinese number 'one hundred,' but with one rule that always trips up English speakers: it almost never appears alone.

To say 'one hundred,' you must say 一百 (yìbǎi) — the 一 is required, unlike English where 'a hundred' or just 'hundred' works fine. Multi-digit numbers follow the same building-block logic as English: 二百 / 两百 (200), 三百 (300), 一百零五 (105 — note the obligatory 零 'zero' to fill the empty tens place), 一百二十 (120). 百 also functions metaphorically to mean 'many / all kinds of' in fixed expressions: 百货 ('hundred goods' = department store merchandise), 百分之 ('per hundred' = percent), 百姓 ('the hundred surnames' = ordinary people).

Tone change: 一百 is yìbǎi — 一 shifts from yī to yì (fourth tone) before bǎi (third tone). The character itself is one (一) on top of 'white' (白), but the etymology is unrelated to color.

Example sentences

这本书一百块钱。

Zhè běn shū yìbǎi kuài qián.

This book is a hundred yuan.

spoken

教室里有一百个学生。

Jiàoshì lǐ yǒu yìbǎi gè xuésheng.

There are a hundred students in the classroom.

neutral

他考了一百分。

Tā kǎo le yìbǎi fēn.

He scored a hundred (a perfect score).

neutral

我有几百块钱。

Wǒ yǒu jǐbǎi kuài qián.

I have a few hundred yuan.

spoken

百分之九十的人都喜欢。

Bǎi fēn zhī jiǔshí de rén dōu xǐhuan.

Ninety percent of people like it.

written

Common phrases with 百

一百yìbǎione hundred
百分之bǎi fēn zhīpercent (literally 'parts per hundred')
百货bǎihuògeneral merchandise; department store goods
百姓bǎixìngordinary people; the common folk
几百jǐbǎia few hundred

Don't confuse 百 with

白bái

白 means 'white' (second tone). 百 means 'hundred' (third tone). 百 is just 白 with an extra horizontal stroke on top. Mixing them up is the most common HSK 2 character confusion.

千qiān

千 is 'thousand,' the next order of magnitude. 一千 (1,000), 一百 (100). Easy to mix up when reading large numbers.

万wàn

万 is 'ten thousand' — Chinese counts in units of 万 rather than thousands, so 100,000 is 十万 (ten 万s), not '一百千.' This is one of the trickiest math gaps for English speakers.

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