Expert: Terry Thatcher Waltz - 8/15/2010

Question
I was curious as to why the Chinese have two different symbols for numbers; one for lower and one for upper case?

I am needing to translate the phrase "December 6 Sagittarius" into Chinese symbols and am having a difficult time confirming my translation. I have confirmed the symbols for "Sagittarius" many times over, but having a problem finding what "December 6" should look like.

Your expertise is greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Answer
Chinese people write numbers using Arabic numerals, just as we do in English. The numbers can also be written using Chinese characters. It's sort of like the difference between spelling out the number "six" and writing "6" in English (although they do sometimes use characters to fill in forms, which you would never do writing the long spelled-out word in English).

So you can just write 12/6  (or 6/12 if you're European :-)   ) for "December 6".

Please do not tattoo this on yourself, though...do not give in to the temptation to tattoo yourself with symbols that neither you nor the tattoo artist can read properly. Most Chinese tattoos look like cr@p even if the characters are "right" because Western people who don't read and write Chinese can't reproduce the ratios and proportions of the strokes correctly. Trust me, anyone who knows will be laughing quietly to themselves.