Notations
The digits are positional. The full numerical notations are written in two lines to indicate numerical value, order of magnitude, and unit of measurement.
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When written horizontally (left to right, top to bottom):
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When written vertically (top to bottom, right to left):
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The first line contains the numerical values, in this example, "〤〇〢二" stands for "4022". The second line consists of Chinese characters that represents the order of magnitude and unit of measurement of the first digit in the numerical representation. In this case "拾元" which stands for "ten yuan". When put together, it is then read as "40.22 yuan".
Possible characters denoting order of magnitude include:
- qiān (千) for thousand
- bǎi (百) for hundred
- shí (拾) for ten
- blank for one
Other possible characters denoting unit of measurement include:
- yuán (元) for dollar
- máo (毫) or (毛) for 10 cents
- xiān (仙) for 1 cent
- lǐ (里) for the Chinese mile
- any other Chinese measurement unit
Notice that the decimal point is implicit when the first digit is set at the ten position. Zero is represented by the character for zero (〇). Leading and trailing zeros are unnecessary in this system.
This is very similar to the modern scientific notation for floating point numbers where the significant digits are represented in the mantissa and the order of magnitude is specified in the exponent. Also, the unit of measurement, with the first digit indicator, is usually aligned to the middle of the "numbers" row.
Read more about this topic: Suzhou Numerals