Discounts in Mandarin Chinese

Discounts in Mandarin Chinese Everyone loves a discount. The bigger the better. When youre shopping, its always a good idea to keep a  lookout for good deals and discount signs. If youre shopping or bartering in China or Taiwan, make sure to understand how discounts work in Chinese. Otherwise, you might end up paying for a price much higher than you expected! When it comes to Mandarin Chinese discounts, they are expressed the opposite of English. In English, discount signs are labeled as X% off. In Chinese stores, discount signs will tell you the percentage of the original price that you now have to pay.   So don’t get too excited when something is marked 9 折 (jiÇ” zhà ©); that doesnt mean 90% off. It means you can buy it for 90% of its regular price – a 10% discount. The format for discounts is number 折. Western (Arabic) numbers are used instead of Chinese characters. Here are some examples: 7 折qÄ « zhà ©30% off5 折wÇ” zhà ©50% off2.5 折à ¨r diÇŽn wÇ” zhà ©75% off You might be confused as to how 7 refers to 70% rather than 7%, 5 refers to 50% rather than 5%, and so on. This is because 7  Ã¦Å Ëœ means 0.7 times the price. If an item originally costs $100 but has a  7  Ã¦Å Ëœ discount, then the final cost is 0.7 x $100, or $70.   So when looking out for discount signs in Chinese, remember that the smaller the number, the bigger the discount.

Come and see us at HRD - Emphasis

Come and see us at HRD Come and see us at HRD Its less than a month until the CIPD HRD conference (thats the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Developments annual Human Resource Development event, for those who like some words with their capitals). Well be there will you? Emphasis CEO Rob Ashton will be giving a talk at 11.45 on Thursday 26 April and demonstrating his sentence supercharger technique. Come along and find out how to supercharge any sentence in 60 seconds, giving yourself a huge tactical advantage when it comes to getting your message across. Its a great opportunity to experience a key part of the acclaimed High-impact business writing course. Director Tom Wilde and Development Manager Jenny Ferguson will also be there, on stand 631. You can pre-book an appointment through our exhibitor profile and order your free copy of our style guide The Write Stuff for collection. Or just come and say hello. The HRD conference will take place on 25-26 April, at Olympia in London. Click here for tickets.