While learning Chinese,  you need to be aware of the lucky numbers in Chinese so as to avoid taboos of  Chinese people, or else you may offend your Chinese friends unintentionally  when you get along with them. With a general idea of the lucky numbers, you can  please your Chinese friends in some occasions that involve numbers.

In a Chinese  lesson you can find that number 2 (二 èr ) is frequently used for  it is most often considered a good number in Chinese culture. There is a  Chinese saying: "good things come in pairs". It is common to repeat  characters in product brand names, such as double happiness, which even has its  own character 囍, a combination of two 喜. In Cantonese, two is homophone of the characters for "easy"  (易) and  "bright" (亮). In Northern China, the number, when used as an adjective, can also  mean "stupid", which is frequently used among young people.

The number 3 (三sān) sounds similar to the character for "birth" (生shēng), and is  considered a lucky number. The number 5 (五wŭ) is associated with the  five elements (Water, Fire, Earth, Wood, and Metal) in Chinese philosophy, and  in turn was historically associated with the Emperor of China. For example, the  Tiananmen gate, being the main thoroughfare to the Forbidden City, has five  arches. It is also referred to as the pronoun "I", as the  pronunciations of "I" (我wŏ, and 吾wú) and 5 are  similar in Mandarin. The number 6 (六 liù) in Mandarin is  pronounced the same as "liu" (溜 liù) and similar to  "fluid" (流 liú) and is therefore considered good for business. The number 6 also  represents happiness. In Cantonese, this number is a homophone for blessings.

In your Chinese  learning, you may discover soon that number eight is the favorite number of  Chinese people. The word for "eight" (八bā) sounds similar to the  word which means "prosper" or "wealth" (發fā – short for  "發財"). In regional dialects the words for  "eight" and "fortune" are also similar.  There is also a visual resemblance between  two digits, "88", and 囍, the "shuāng xĭ"  ("double joy"), a popular decorative design composed of two stylized  characters 喜 ("xĭ" meaning "joy" or "happiness"). The  number 8 is viewed as such an auspicious number that even being assigned a  number with several eights is considered very lucky. A telephone number with  all digits being eights was sold for USD$270,723 in Chengdu, China.

The number 9 (九jiŭ), was historically associated with the Emperor of China, the nine  bestowments were rewards the Emperor made for officials of extraordinary  capacity and loyalty, the Emperor's robes often had nine dragons, and Chinese  mythology held that the dragon has nine children. Number nine symbolizes  harmony.

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