The posts about 40 let me think about my problems about learning English numbers: I can easily enough talk with English people BUT , if I need numbers, I am not able to understand them nor to express them , and I need paper to write them.
I read once that Marie Curie, even in her old age, having spent a great part of her life in France, still was counting in Polish when she was studying alone. It seems that numbers are more difficult to learn...does anyone share this experience?
Ciao
Emanuela
It seems that numbers are more difficult to learn...does anyone share this experience?As it happens, my personal experiece is the exact opposite of your problem - I find numbers easy to learn, remember and use. I find it very easy to think of numbers, and visualise them, in each of the four languges in which I have learned to count. Of those four languages, I can converse in only one, and have varying degrees of aural and written comprehension in the other three. Yet counting, and thinking numerically, is easy in all of them.
Emanuela:
I suspect it's a matter of frequency of use, though a man I worked for some years ago made a parallel remark to me once. "No matter how deeply ingrained in me they try to make the metric system, I'll never learn to think in Celsius for temperature."
Ted
I have this Celsius Fahrenheit thing worked out perfectly
(if slightly indefensibly).
http://inspire.ospi.wednet.edu:8001/curric/weather/fahrcels.html0 degrees sounds pretty cold but 32 doesn't do anything for me so I stick to Celsius for cold weather.
In the Summer I'm much more impressed by the weather being in the 90s than the 30s, so I stick to Fahrenheit.
For everything else in-between, below 15 - Centigrade, above 60 - Fahrenheit, simple really!
The sad thing is that I know I'm not the only one who thinks the same way. Our weather forecasts often show both, so we don't even need to do the sums.
It's a bit like buying 48 inch wide fabric by the metre or 5 metre wide carpet by the yard - we do that too
!
When calculating other currencies abroad, my speciality is to get the 1-9 numbers right but to be way off the mark with the 0000s - sometimes I refuse to buy something because I think it is outrageously expensive (in Turkey recently 1,000,000 Turkish Lira = £1) or I comment on how cheap things are and find out I'm out by a factor of 10.
Funny things, numbers!
yet another perspective on numbers: I recently suffered some hearing loss (as the result of an air-bag deployment!)
and one of my biggest problems is distinguishing numbers. there is usually no context, especially with proximal numbers, which can help in guessing.
Emanuela, cara, do not be concerned. There are those with English as a first language and who learn their numbers with their alphabet and they still have difficulties with numbers. Do whatever works best for you. You speak two languages, that's an accomplishment. Be happy.
Aloha, wow
Dear Tswum, Thank you for your post. I have had a hearing loss since childhood, now I have a reason not to be great at math.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
wow
I know how you feel emanuela.
In French the number 70 is said as “sixty and ten” (soixante et dix)
The number 80 is said as “four twenties” (quatre-vingts)
the number 90 is said as “four twenty ten” (quatre-vingt-dix)
Even though I am fluent in both English and French I invariable have to correct myself when writing down a number that someone is telling me. The worst is the70 range. Because of the rhythm of pronunciation there is a slight pause between sixty … and ten.
In reply to:
In French the number 70 is said as “sixty and ten” (soixante et dix)
The number 80 is said as “four twenties” (quatre-vingts)
I had a Belgian friend tell me once that in Belgian French, they often use "septante" and "huitante" for "soixante et dix" and "quatre vingts" - I liked that idea a lot, it made counting in French much simpler.
Oddly, they used to pronounce it that way when my Granny was young. I don't know why they stopped. It makes so much sense to have a specific, applicable to only one number, name.
I stand to be corrected, since numbers are just about the only words I know in that language, but I believe that Japanese has a very simple number system. Translated into English, it goes as follows:
1 to 10 - unique(*see below) words for each
11 - ten-one
12 - ten-two
13 - ten-three
...
20 - two-tens
21 - two-tens-one
22 - two-tens-two
...
31 - three-tens-one
...
99 - nine-tens-nine
100 - dunno! My grandfather only taught me to 99 (the number I mean, not his age!)
*Mind you, I understand that they then proceed to throw away all that simplicity by having different forms of each word (e.g. several different variations of the word for "four") depending on what is being enumerated.
In reply to:
1 to 10 - unique(*see below) words for each
11 - ten-one
12 - ten-two
13 - ten-three
...
20 - two-tens
21 - two-tens-one
31 - three-tens-one
Apparently, the island of Taiwan is favoured as a likely point of origin for Polynesian peoples. I mention this because Maori uses exactly the same counting system as the one you listed - interesting, given Japan's proximity to Taiwan. Perhaps the similarity is not coincidental.
If so, the proximity (not) of Wales to Taiwan may explain why the traditional Welsh numbering system included all sorts of seemingly random concoctions for say 22 being "2 times 7 plus half the number of sheep penned in the big field less 4". I'll research and tell you more anon.
Indonesian is in the same language family (Austronesian) as Taiwanese and more distantly Maori, but its number system goes
1-9
one ten
one teen
two teen
three teen etc.
two ten
two ten one
two ten two
two ten three etc.
three ten.... four ten ... etc.
Somewhere I did see a comparison of some common words in Austronesian languages including Maori, but can I find it again? No, I can't.
Bingley
In reply to:
Somewhere I did see a comparison of some common words in Austronesian languages including Maori, but can I find it again?
Maori soldiers who served in Malaysia were apparently surprised at how many basic words were identical in the two languages. The only one that I can remember is wai, meaning "water"
P.S. I just got my grade for this post - a D!
Whew, took me ages to get through the millions of posts since last Tuesday.
I must say, I find French numerals easy to use and cute at the same time. But what about German ones? I've heard 'four-and-twenty hours' for so many times (in English, of course) I'm beginning to wonder if it is not interchangeable with good old twenty-four...
Just spotted what I had written:
took me ages...since last Tuesday. I wish I could compress time just like that. Another four-and-twenty hours a day would be a blessing, sometimes. Provided, full-time job would still mean 8h a day
.
Meanwhile in Taiwan
the numbers in the national language here -- Mandarin Chinese -- follow the same pattern as with Japanese, though only "2" varies, depending on whether it modifies something or stands alone.
Taiwanese, a legacy of settlers from south China, is related to Mandarin Chinese, which was brought over by north Chinese officials and their armies, but the aboriginal languages aren't. I don't know how counting works there.
As I understand it, though, neither the Chinese languages nor Taiwan's aboriginal languages are related to Japanese.
Taiwanese friends have often told me, with certain pride, that their language (in this case mandarin) has no grammar to speak of. Rubbish of course, but, with very few changes in verbs for person or tense, or in nouns either, it's far simpler than the European languages I'm aware of.
So perhaps the variability in our numbers, with -teens and -ties and soixante-treizes, is just another aspect of how fiddly our languages are. Is there a fiddliness constant for each language?
Welcome salmon! Are you a cyclist too? And what is it about this board that attracts fish?
>Is there a fiddliness constant for each language?
Hi salmon, welcome to the Board. Hang around for a while and you will see that there is no "fiddliness constant" we are constantly fiddling. Arbitrarily. Regardless of the language.
Hmm, two fish in our pond. Now we'll see if Shona is a loner or a grouper.
neither the Chinese languages nor Taiwan's aboriginal languages are related to Japanese.
the Japanese are pretty open about the idea that they "borrowed" their writing system from the Chinese. some of the character have the same meaning, but different pronounciations. (so the symbol for "house" might look the same in both countries, but one might be pronounced house and the other casa-- and the meanings aren't identical--cottage and mansion are both english words for houses, but not the same idea except in the most general way.)
my sister is (has been) learning japanese, and she was explaining big numbers this summer, it was something on the order of one hundred 80's (for 8,000) and there was a word for thousand too, (since it was a big number-- we were talking house prices
--what got her was thinking of the number in japanese in yen, and the translating to english and dollars...
Since apparently for very big numbers you say a thousand 800's (8,000,000) or a thousand 8000's. (80,000,000) discussing numbers into the billions is harder..
>you will see that there is no "fiddliness constant" we are constantly fiddlingFiddle? I think in your case the word is tinker, bel.
>Hmm, two fish in our pond.
whereas I am, I suppose, a lowly piscicapturist.
Hmm, two fish in our pond.Come on, now. Fish aren't the only aquatic creatures.
piscicapturist
My, my tsuwm. I tried Atomica (new version of Gurunet) for the definition of that word and it did a Google search and the first result was you're wwftd. Full circle in 30 seconds!
In reply to:
and the first result was you're wwftd.
Oh no, the virus is spreading! 
>>and the first result was you're wwftd.
>Oh no, the virus is spreading!
Jazzockie's post reads OK to me, Max. tsuwm IS wwftd.
>you're wwftd
...and what am I?
-ron obvious
In reply to:
Jazzockie's post reads OK to me, Max. tsuwm IS wwftd.
Granted. I should have read it this way: "and the first result was "you're wwftd.""
Fiddle? I think in your case the word is tinker, bel.
Fairies on the roof?
In reply to:
The only one that I can remember is wai, meaning "water"
Wai is not a common word in Indonesian. It means river and is mainly used in placenames. The usual word for water confusingly enough is air , pronounced more or less ay-er. The situation may be different in Melayu (Malay) but I'm not sure. Given the vast gulfs between different varieties of English we've been falling into, anything is possible.
Bingley
>>and the first result was you're wwftd.
>Oh no, the virus is spreading!
Jazzockie's post reads OK to me, Max. tsuwm IS wwftd.
I think I'll leave it at that. . .
what is it about this board that attracts fish?
Well I don't know about salmon ( and greetings, fishy friend), but I was led to believe I'd get A Worm A Day.
A Worm A Day
...and now you're hooked?
what is it about this board that attracts fish?
Is it because we're all groupers rather than gropers?
Now, you have to know that my PC is tempest-rated and that I'm encased in kevlar body armour. So throwing things will not have any effect.