There are three types of prices:

The classifier 蚊 man1 means ‘dollar’. It is also the unit of money in Hong Kong.

To say a price without cents, we put 蚊 man1 after the number. We can use contracted forms of the tens digits (e.g., 廿 jaa6 for 20, 卅呀 saa1 aa6 for 30). See Grammar and Vocabulary 34.1 for the rules.

Since 蚊 man1 is a classifier, for ‘$2’, we use 兩 loeng5 instead of 二 ji6.

The classifiers 毫 hou4 and 毫子 hou4 zi2 mean ‘10 cents ($0.1)’. 毫子 hou4 zi2 is more informal than 毫 hou4.

To mean ‘10 cents, 20 cents, 30 cents, etc.’, we take the first digit (1, 2, 3, etc.) and put 毫 hou4 or 毫子 hou4 zi2 after it. Notice we take the first digit only, but not the complete number (10, 20, 30, etc.).

Since 毫 hou4 and 毫子 hou4 zi2 are classifiers, for ‘20 cents ($0.2)’, we usually use 兩 loeng5, but 二 ji6 is also used sometimes.

The classifier 仙 sin1 means ‘1 cent ($0.01)’. 仙 sin1 is rarely used in Hong Kong nowadays. So you don’t need to remember its use if you will only say prices in Hong Kong dollars!

To mean ’1 cent, 2 cents, 3 cents, etc.’, we put 仙 sin1 after the number.

Since 仙 sin1 is a classifier, for ‘2 cents ($0.02)’, we use 兩 loeng5 instead of 二 ji6.

To say prices like $0.99 and $0.55, we can use 毫 hou4 or 仙 sin1 in the structures below.

When using 毫 hou4, we can optionally add 子 zi2 at the end. We usually say 5 cents ($0.05) as 半 bun3 (‘half’).

When using 仙 sin1, we say the number in the price like in English (e.g., ninety-nine cents for ‘$0.99’ and fifty-five cents for ‘$0.55’).

There are two methods to say a price with cents. We use Method 2 more often, especially in less formal contexts.

We use 蚊 man1 and 毫 hou4 together, as we have learned above. We can optionally add 零 ling4 (‘zero’) between the dollars and the cents.

We put the classifier 個 go3 between the dollars and the cents. We usually say ‘50 cents ($0.5)’ as 半 bun3 (‘half’).

We usually use Method 1 if both the tens digit and the ones digit (the two digits before the decimal point) are zero (e.g., $100.4, 2500.5, 36000.6).

To indicate the price of an item, we simply put the price after the item to form a sentence. Note that we don’t need to add a verb between the item and the price. It is a sentence structure that has a predicate without a verb (see Grammar and Vocabulary 12.4).