When traveling or living in China an important thing to be able to do is bargain. Now, if your Chinese isn't up to standard or you can't understand the local dialect you can use your fingers to communicate. Disclaimer: These finger signs are NOT the same as ASL. So, using most of them on a deaf person in the States will not help you any.
These finger signs are very simple to learn and soon become natural to use if you spend a day shopping and are bargaining the whole day. Native speakers of Chinese use these finger signs regularly, so there is no chance that they will not understand you. You can find them using the signs in regular daily life to answer questions that a number is the response even if they are also saying the number. It's much like putting an emphasis on the word rather than to pass information on. I have found that even now, many years after returning to the states, I still use finger signs when using numbers in daily conversation. Most of the time the person I'm talking to doesn't even notice UNLESS they happen to know the finger signs themselves - then they call me out on it... sometimes.
I'm including several different pictures of the numbers 1 - 10 that I've found on the internet because there are multiple ways to do 10 in these finger signs. It's best that you know all of them just in case the person you are trying to bargain with uses a different version of 10.
I started with this graphic since this is the way I prefer to sign 10. It is similar to the ASL sign for 10 so it is easier for me to remember. You'll also notice that the 3 is different than in the other 2 graphics. Although you may see this version from time to time, it is not commonly used.
This version of 10 is widely seen in China. Especially when bargaining in major tourist areas. I'm not sure why they like to use this version in those situations as it's literally just signing the Chinese symbol for 10 - as you can see in the previous graphic.
Although this version of 10 is used, you will rarely see it. I have only seen it a handful of times myself despite the MANY, MANY, MANY times I've used finger signs while communicating with people. But I'm including it here just in case you run into that one person that does prefer using this sign.
Bonus Lesson: The numbers in Chinese are quite simple from 11 - 99. 11 is 10-1 (shi yi 十一). 25 is 2-10-5 (er shi wu 二十五). 72 is 7-10-2 (qi shi er 七十二). 90 is 9-10 (jiu shi 九十). All the numbers from 11 - 99 follow that number format. So once you learn 1 - 10, you've got them all figured out. 100+ is similar except that in colloquial Chinese many times they drop identifying words leaving you to figure it out from context. Because of that, I'll leave this post short and broach the subject of the numbers system fully in a later post.
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