Friday, May 20, 2011 | By: Hu Yijun (胡逸君)

When you participate in extremely fast-paced online communication, you may find typing in Chinese characters just can’t keep up with what you want to say, and sometimes you may type the wrong words because you’re so rushed. So what should you do to save time? Let’s learn a time-saving and labor-saving way of talking on the net by making full use of Arabic numbers.

In Chinese pronunciation, every number is pronounced similarly to other Chinese characters; 4, sì, sounds like 是 shì; 5, wǔ, sounds like 我 wǒ and so on. However, this kind of collocation is not fixed and people just use numbers with similar pronunciations to the Chinese words that first come to their minds. The combination of several numbers, with similar pronunciations to different Chinese characters, can then make up a short Chinese phrase. For example, today is May 20^th; in Chinese 5-2-0, wǔ èr ling, sounds a bit like (and thus is used to mean) 我爱你 wǒ ài nǐ.

The number phrases are much easier to type than Chinese characters, but to understand them and insert them into dialogues may be a tough task for many foreigners. So we are going to introduce some typical and widely used number phrases that you can adopt in your QQ talk or on BBS posts.

1314 yī sān yī sì

一生一世 yīshēng yīshì

For one’s whole life

360 sān liù líng

想念你 xiǎngniàn nǐ

[I] miss you

25184 èr wǔ yī bā sì

爱我一辈子ài wǒ yībèizi

Love me for a lifetime

4242 sì èr sì èr

是啊是啊 shì a shì a

Yes, yes

5366 wǔ sān liù liù

我想聊聊 wǒ xiǎng liáo liáo

I want to have a chat.

555 wǔ wǔ wǔ

呜呜呜 wū wū wū

(The sound of crying)

7456 qī sì wǔ liù

气死我了qì sǐ wǒ le

[you/it/something] pisses me off.

748 qī sì bā

去死吧 qù sǐ ba

Go to hell!

88(6) bā bā (liù)

拜拜(啦) bàibài (la)

Bye-bye

847 bā sì qī

别生气 bié shēngqì

Don’t be angry.

9494 jiǔ sì jiǔ sì

就是就是 jiùshì jiùshì

918 jiǔ yī bā

加油吧 jiāyóu ba

Cheer up!

If you think you have learned a lot, try to make up a number phrase as a practice. What are the numbers for “抱抱你亲亲你一生一世我爱你”（Bào bào nǐ qīn qīn nǐ yīshēng yīshì wǒ ài nǐ，Kiss you and hug you, I love you forever）?

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