零
零 – Ling2 – Zero
I rented F-Zero GX today, it’s pretty good. Very very fast. They warned me at the video store to be careful of motion sickness, and I see what they mean, I think it’s faster and spins around even more than the last F-Zero game.
Even though there’s a character for zero, when writing out numbers, just a plain circle is sometimes used to mean zero. For example, 501 would be 五０一 – Wu3 Ling2 Yi1 – Five Zero One. Yes, sometimes numbers are written (and spoken) in this positional format, as opposed to the non-positional one I mentioned before. You have to figure out which one is meant by the context! I guess it’s kind of like English, where we are just as likely to say “one oh one” or “one hundred and one” for the number 101.
Another cool one is 零食 – Ling2 Shi2 – Zero Food — Snack.
And 零錢 – Ling2 Qian2 – Zero Money — Change.
Finally 零用錢 – Ling2 Yong4 Qian2 – Zero Use Money — Allowance.