Chinese counts in units of 万 (wàn = 10,000), not thousands. So 120,000 is parsed as 12 × 10,000 = 十二万, not '120 thousand'. Always retrain your ear: 一万 = 10K, 十万 = 100K, 一百万 = 1 million.
mistakes
Don't say *一百二十千 — that's a literal translation of 'one hundred twenty thousand' that no native speaker uses. Always group by 万.
