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I took one semester of French in college after 4 years of Spanish in high school. The most intriguing parts for me were around numbers and counting. For exampl

I took one semester of French in college after 4 years of Spanish in high school. The most intriguing parts for me were around numbers and counting. For example, the number 80 is "quatre-vingts", which literally means 4 x 20. I thought maybe this gave French youth an edge with arithmetic, and this slight edge might translate to strong mathematics foundations later in life. I have heard there is a strong emphasis on mathematics in their school curriculums, so maybe there is some correlation there.

TillE 11y ago
French numbers are really weird and inconsistent. Swiss French is a little more sensible, so you have for example "septante" for 70 rather than "soixante-dix" (60 + 10).
Hobotron1 11y ago
23 auf Deutsch is dreiundzwanzig or "three and twenty-many" Fun stuff.
- Jayd2014 11y ago
  Fun fact: Its the same in Arabic. Numbers are read from right to left.
cletus 11y ago
English is really consistent here. 4321 is four thousand three hundred and twenty one. Probably the biggest inconsistency in English are the numbers 11 to 19. Many European languages are not. Often with numbers between 11 and 99 are a weird special case. German puts the single digit first. As another poster mentioned 23 is "dreiundzwanzig" (literally "3 and 20"). French is worse where 97 is "quatre-vingts dix-sept" (literally "4 20s 10 7"). These are just the last remnants of a pre-decimal ("vigesimal" specifically) counting system. I don't really see how weird rule exclusions on certain numbers would give anyone an advantage in math, particularly because even though the word means "4 20s" when you learn it, it's just a word and it may well just lead to questions like "why isn't 40 2 20s?" There is a cognitive cost with exclusions. I remember reading a study once about how verbs became regular in English. There was a mathematical relationship between how often the word was used and how quickly it became regular. The less used, the quicker it happened. This is why "to be" is irregular (as its the most common verb) whereas most other verbs (with <100 exclusions) follow a simple pattern. It's probably the same with numbers. The numbers less than 100 are used far more often so their irregularity is preserved far longer than the less common numbers above 100.
- lordnacho 11y ago
  But what is causing the irregularity? Is there any benefit to conjugating "to be" differently to everything else?
  - cynicalkane 11y ago
    It's thought to be a combination of colloquialisms + the Indo-European ablaut system, wherein vowels would change depending on conjugation. Consider how many English irregular verbs follow a pattern. Sing, sang, sung. Ring, rang, rung. These are ablaut conjugations.
Dewie3 11y ago
> I thought maybe this gave French youth an edge with arithmetic, and this slight edge might translate to strong mathematics foundations later in life. As opposed to regularly "doing the arithmetic" 8 x 10?

TillE 11y ago

French numbers are really weird and inconsistent. Swiss French is a little more sensible, so you have for example "septante" for 70 rather than "soixante-dix" (60 + 10).

Hobotron1 11y ago

23 auf Deutsch is dreiundzwanzig or "three and twenty-many" Fun stuff.

Jayd2014 11y ago
Fun fact: Its the same in Arabic. Numbers are read from right to left.

cletus 11y ago

English is really consistent here. 4321 is four thousand three hundred and twenty one. Probably the biggest inconsistency in English are the numbers 11 to 19. Many European languages are not. Often with numbers between 11 and 99 are a weird special case. German puts the single digit first. As another poster mentioned 23 is "dreiundzwanzig" (literally "3 and 20"). French is worse where 97 is "quatre-vingts dix-sept" (literally "4 20s 10 7"). These are just the last remnants of a pre-decimal ("vigesimal" specifically) counting system. I don't really see how weird rule exclusions on certain numbers would give anyone an advantage in math, particularly because even though the word means "4 20s" when you learn it, it's just a word and it may well just lead to questions like "why isn't 40 2 20s?" There is a cognitive cost with exclusions. I remember reading a study once about how verbs became regular in English. There was a mathematical relationship between how often the word was used and how quickly it became regular. The less used, the quicker it happened. This is why "to be" is irregular (as its the most common verb) whereas most other verbs (with <100 exclusions) follow a simple pattern. It's probably the same with numbers. The numbers less than 100 are used far more often so their irregularity is preserved far longer than the less common numbers above 100.

lordnacho 11y ago
But what is causing the irregularity? Is there any benefit to conjugating "to be" differently to everything else?
- cynicalkane 11y ago
  It's thought to be a combination of colloquialisms + the Indo-European ablaut system, wherein vowels would change depending on conjugation. Consider how many English irregular verbs follow a pattern. Sing, sang, sung. Ring, rang, rung. These are ablaut conjugations.

Dewie3 11y ago

> I thought maybe this gave French youth an edge with arithmetic, and this slight edge might translate to strong mathematics foundations later in life. As opposed to regularly "doing the arithmetic" 8 x 10?