4 ms·

I love German language, but one thing totally freaks me out is that in German numbers between 21 and 99 are pronounced "backwards". That is, 21 is "einundzwanzi

by orless 10y ago

I love German language, but one thing totally freaks me out is that in German numbers between 21 and 99 are pronounced "backwards". That is, 21 is "einundzwanzig" - "one and twenty". I speak German for somewhat 15 years already, but every time I have to deal with numbers below 100, I freeze for a couple of seconds.

andreasklinger 10y ago
same here in german: when (for whatever reason) people dictate numbers i always insist on single digit dictation my brain cant handle long series of "twoandtwenty, threeandforty"
douche 10y ago
Try French, where you eventually have to start doing addition, multiplication, or both... Quatre-vingt-douze = four times twenty plus twelve = 92
- bad_login 10y ago
  Yes, but belgium and switzerland doesn't: France, belgium/switzerland 70 -> soixante dix (60 + 10) -> septant (latin word like september for 7) 80 -> quate vingt (4 * 20) -> octant/huitant (come from huit = 8) 90 -> quatre vingt dix (4 * 20 + 10) -> nonant (latin word for 9)
lillesvin 10y ago
It's the same in Danish. And it repeats (in German too) for every 100, so you get "einhunderteinundzwanzig" in German or "(et) hundrede enogtyve" in Danish. I imagine it can really trip you up with large numbers that are usually grouped by thousands, millions, billion, etc. when saying them out loud, like 123456789: "hundrede og treogtyve millioner, fire hundrede seksoghalvtreds tusinde og syv hundrede niogfirs", literally: "one hundred and three-and-twenty million, four hundred six-and-fifty thousand and seven hundred nine-and-eighty". And Danish has yet another quirk. The names for 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 aren' based on multiplication with 10 but on multiplication with 20, so instead of saying something to the effect of "five-tens" we say "half-third (i.e. 2.5) times 20", and then we even go and shorten it to obscure the fact that it's based on 20-multiplication. I envy no one who has to learn Danish numerals.
- Symbiote 10y ago
  English (and Swedish and Norwegian) all used to use the backwards form. (I know the English form mostly from an old nursery rhyme, with the line "four and twenty blackbirds" [1].) Before that, counting was also in twenties (score), as in "three score and ten". I wish Danish had made the same changes. "Tres", "firs" are clearly something about three and four, and "halv" is half -- it's difficult not to think about 3, 4 and ½, and with the "sinds-tyve" omitted, there's no time to think before then next word is spoken. I also have difficulty distinguishing "halv" and "og" in "tre half tres" / "tre og tres". This website will be useful practise. I've found [2] "A Scandinavist language reform movement tried to get the 20-based forms replaced by 10-based like Norwegian and Swedish have. With absolutely no success. Danish 10-based forms are only used in inter-Scandinavian communication and money documents like cheques. They are: femti, seksti, syvti, ot(te)ti, niti" I suspect English numbers would be better understood by the average Dane... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence#Lyrics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence#Lyrics [2] http://www.olestig.dk/dansk/numbers.html http://www.olestig.dk/dansk/numbers.html
innocentoldguy 10y ago
Counting in Japanese is easy to learn, because it is very consistent. For example, in English, we have "eleven," but in Japanese, it is "juuichi," or "ten one." "Twenty" is "nijuuichi," or "two ten one." The thing that always throws me off is that the breaks in larger numbers are different than in English. For example, as we add more and more zeros to a number, we say: One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, one million, ten million, one hundred million, one billion. In Japanese, they break the numbers up like this (they use different words, of course): One (1), ten (10), hundred (100), thousand (1,000), one "man" (10,000), ten "man" (100,000), one hundred "man" (1,000,000), one thousand "man" (10,000,000), one "oku," (100,000,000), and ten "oku" (1,000,000,000). I'm pretty good up until one "man," then I have to start thinking.
- pacaro 10y ago
  But Japanese has the extra wrinkle that it uses different words depending on what is being counted...
  - scaramanga 10y ago
    That seemed insane to me at first but somehow that is easily intuitively absorbed. The man (10,000) thing catches me out every time though.
    - Nadya 10y ago
      Depending on how obscure the counter is - even Japanese people struggle [0]! Honestly, you only need a dozen or two counters. The hard part for me is remembering to use them. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6sNa70KsW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6sNa70KsW8
- kifki 10y ago
  Not related to Japanese, but to large numbers in general: I just learned that there are to scales for billions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales
rahimnathwani 10y ago
I'd never thought about it before, but Gujarati has the same issue. The word for 21 is pronounced like one-twenty.
gurkendoktor 10y ago
I'm German and I often notice fellow Germans (including myself) getting two-digit numbers wrong when under stress, when translating things, or when dealing with lots of digits at the same time (phone numbers...). This is not a cute quirk of our language, but a wart that needs to go.
eequah9L 10y ago
Interestingly, Czech allows reading numbers below 100 in this backward fashion, so 21 can be read as either "dvacet jedna" or "jednadvacet". I perceive the latter as less formal, but in everyday speech, nobody would raise an eyebrow if I used it. Likewise with ordinals: 21st could be pronounced either "dvacátý první" or "jednadvacátý".

by orless 10y ago

andreasklinger 10y ago

same here in german: when (for whatever reason) people dictate numbers i always insist on single digit dictation my brain cant handle long series of "twoandtwenty, threeandforty"

douche 10y ago

Try French, where you eventually have to start doing addition, multiplication, or both... Quatre-vingt-douze = four times twenty plus twelve = 92

bad_login 10y ago
Yes, but belgium and switzerland doesn't: France, belgium/switzerland 70 -> soixante dix (60 + 10) -> septant (latin word like september for 7) 80 -> quate vingt (4 * 20) -> octant/huitant (come from huit = 8) 90 -> quatre vingt dix (4 * 20 + 10) -> nonant (latin word for 9)

lillesvin 10y ago

It's the same in Danish. And it repeats (in German too) for every 100, so you get "einhunderteinundzwanzig" in German or "(et) hundrede enogtyve" in Danish. I imagine it can really trip you up with large numbers that are usually grouped by thousands, millions, billion, etc. when saying them out loud, like 123456789: "hundrede og treogtyve millioner, fire hundrede seksoghalvtreds tusinde og syv hundrede niogfirs", literally: "one hundred and three-and-twenty million, four hundred six-and-fifty thousand and seven hundred nine-and-eighty". And Danish has yet another quirk. The names for 50, 60, 70, 80 and 90 aren' based on multiplication with 10 but on multiplication with 20, so instead of saying something to the effect of "five-tens" we say "half-third (i.e. 2.5) times 20", and then we even go and shorten it to obscure the fact that it's based on 20-multiplication. I envy no one who has to learn Danish numerals.

Symbiote 10y ago
English (and Swedish and Norwegian) all used to use the backwards form. (I know the English form mostly from an old nursery rhyme, with the line "four and twenty blackbirds" [1].) Before that, counting was also in twenties (score), as in "three score and ten". I wish Danish had made the same changes. "Tres", "firs" are clearly something about three and four, and "halv" is half -- it's difficult not to think about 3, 4 and ½, and with the "sinds-tyve" omitted, there's no time to think before then next word is spoken. I also have difficulty distinguishing "halv" and "og" in "tre half tres" / "tre og tres". This website will be useful practise. I've found [2] "A Scandinavist language reform movement tried to get the 20-based forms replaced by 10-based like Norwegian and Swedish have. With absolutely no success. Danish 10-based forms are only used in inter-Scandinavian communication and money documents like cheques. They are: femti, seksti, syvti, ot(te)ti, niti" I suspect English numbers would be better understood by the average Dane... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence#Lyrics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sing_a_Song_of_Sixpence#Lyrics [2] http://www.olestig.dk/dansk/numbers.html http://www.olestig.dk/dansk/numbers.html

innocentoldguy 10y ago

Counting in Japanese is easy to learn, because it is very consistent. For example, in English, we have "eleven," but in Japanese, it is "juuichi," or "ten one." "Twenty" is "nijuuichi," or "two ten one." The thing that always throws me off is that the breaks in larger numbers are different than in English. For example, as we add more and more zeros to a number, we say: One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand, one hundred thousand, one million, ten million, one hundred million, one billion. In Japanese, they break the numbers up like this (they use different words, of course): One (1), ten (10), hundred (100), thousand (1,000), one "man" (10,000), ten "man" (100,000), one hundred "man" (1,000,000), one thousand "man" (10,000,000), one "oku," (100,000,000), and ten "oku" (1,000,000,000). I'm pretty good up until one "man," then I have to start thinking.

pacaro 10y ago
But Japanese has the extra wrinkle that it uses different words depending on what is being counted...
- scaramanga 10y ago
  That seemed insane to me at first but somehow that is easily intuitively absorbed. The man (10,000) thing catches me out every time though.
  - Nadya 10y ago
    Depending on how obscure the counter is - even Japanese people struggle [0]! Honestly, you only need a dozen or two counters. The hard part for me is remembering to use them. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6sNa70KsW8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N6sNa70KsW8
kifki 10y ago
Not related to Japanese, but to large numbers in general: I just learned that there are to scales for billions - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_and_short_scales

rahimnathwani 10y ago

I'd never thought about it before, but Gujarati has the same issue. The word for 21 is pronounced like one-twenty.

gurkendoktor 10y ago

I'm German and I often notice fellow Germans (including myself) getting two-digit numbers wrong when under stress, when translating things, or when dealing with lots of digits at the same time (phone numbers...). This is not a cute quirk of our language, but a wart that needs to go.

eequah9L 10y ago

Interestingly, Czech allows reading numbers below 100 in this backward fashion, so 21 can be read as either "dvacet jedna" or "jednadvacet". I perceive the latter as less formal, but in everyday speech, nobody would raise an eyebrow if I used it. Likewise with ordinals: 21st could be pronounced either "dvacátý první" or "jednadvacátý".