I’m German and our way of counting is genuinely stupid. 121 would translate to “onehundred one and twenty”. You’d think it’s just a matter of practice but errors related to mixing up digits are statistically more common in German speaking regions. Awesome when it comes to stuff like calculating medication dosages and such. Like it’s not a huge issue but it’s such an unneccessary layer of confusion.
Something's wrong with denmark
Submitted 5 weeks ago by ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world to [deleted]
https://lemmy.world/pictrs/image/a26d464d-f8b9-40a6-a883-46a67faefeee.png
Comments
Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
EddoWagt@feddit.nl 5 weeks ago
Its so annoying with phone numbers as well, depending how someone pronounces is. My mom always says phone numbers in 2 digits, like 06 12 34 56 78 (06 twelve fourandthirty sixandfifty eightandseventy) and you just get confused because you want to type in the first number pronounced
neatobuilds@lemmy.today 5 weeks ago
Phone numbers should always be said by individual digits, makes it simpler and faster to type as you’re listening
Slovene@feddit.nl 5 weeks ago
ECB@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
As a non-native working in German, the numbers are one of the trickiest parts.
My jobs generally involve a lot of math and discussions of numbers, and I often struggle with swapping numbers around in my head. Especially because when you get to bigger numbers people often switch between (or use a combination of) listing individual digits left-to-right and saying multi-digit numbers.
The though is when you occasionally notice natives mess it up!
Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
My experience living in The Netherlands (which has a similar system) as a non-native whose mothertongue is from the Romance branch is that you eventually get used to it. I think that’s because as your language skills improve you just stop interpreting the parts of the number individually and handle hearing and speaking those “nastier” blocks of two digits as if the whole block is a language expression.
Even better the apparently flip-flopping between one way of ordering digits and another one in longer numbers (for example: “two thousand and two and ninety”) actually makes the strategy of “everything between 0 and 99 is processed as an expression” viable, whilst I’m not so sure that would be possible if instead of 100 numerical language expressions we had 1000 or more.
(If you’re not a Franch native speaker and you learn the language you might notice something similar when at some point your mind switches from interpreting “quatre-vingt” as “four twenty” to just taking it in whole block as an expression that translates to eighty)
Ziglin@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
I’m bilingual and switch back and forth a lot between languages when I’m not home. As such I often mess this up half way through calculating something.
LorIps@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
Based and logic pilled
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It just feels weird saying it the other way tho
FilthyShrooms@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
rumba@lemmy.zip 5 weeks ago
Ehh, i’m not giving France a pass either.
The answer to 100 - 8 should not be four twenties and a twelve. We’re counting, not making change.
French counting is bunk. Way, Way, better then Denmark though apparently
Nariom@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
the thing nobody mentions is that the 4x20 part became a word that just means 80 in people’s mind, it kinda not literal anymore, but the Swiss and Belgian ways are still better
vandsjov@feddit.dk 5 weeks ago
I think the first picture jumps over a little bit of calculation:
9 x 10 + 2
2 + 9 x 10
p.s. The third one makes total sense!
StThicket@reddthat.com 5 weeks ago
Norway used to count like the Germans, but switched after the introduction of the telephone. There were simply too many mistakes when telling the numbers to the operators, that a change was mandated.
Old people might still use the 2+90 variant though, but it is not very common.
brealorg@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
So now you’re calling me old? THE NERVE!
dcat@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
to everyone who reads this dudes comment and starts imagining 75 year old grandmas saying it: i’m 30 and say 2+90, and it’s still very much a thing.
Nangijala@feddit.dk 5 weeks ago
That meme is so lame. 92 in Danish is two and a half fives. The 20 part is old-fashioned and literally nobody has used that since the 1800s.
2 and a half fives’ twentieth = outdated cringe. 2 and a half fives = actually how it is said today.
It’s still a friggin nightmare to get someone’s Phone number verbally, though.
1337@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
[deleted]drmoose@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It’s breaking my brain too, what is this cryptography lmao
GoosLife@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
No, in Danish the “half five” part means the same as “half past 4” on the clock: 4.5.
Then the part that most people omit nowadays, sindstyvende, means times 20.
(Half past 4) times 20 = 90.
JacksonLamb@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
That only makes it worse.
Two and a half fives = 12.
Nangijala@feddit.dk 5 weeks ago
More like 2 and half fives. Half five is our word for 90. So in essence we say 2 and 90 but the word 90 is half five.
80 is fours
70 is half fours
60 is threes
50 is half threes
40 is forty
30 is thirty
20 is twenty
10 is ten.
Oh and a 100 is a hundred. So I dunno what happened between 50 and 90, but I’m sure there is a funny story behind that somewhere.
petersr@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Dane here. No one actively thinks of 90 (halvfems, 2 and a half fives) as a mathematical expression. Is is just a word for 90. Would it have been nice if that word meant “9 tens”, yes, but Danish is a just a stupid language where you have to learn a bunch of things by heart which sucks.
werefreeatlast@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
How would you say trump is like Hitler? Do you have to describe the Holocaust in few words within a long ass German style word?
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Denmark = outdated cringe
Just kidding neighbor, I love you all
Dasus@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Exactly
Base 20, or “vigesimal”.
LocoLobo@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Fun fact, english used to count the same way as german, and it still has the numbers in “reverse” from 13 to 19.
schibutzu@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
I’m actually impressed by this map. The French speaking part of Switzerland is not only differentiated from the German speaking part, it is also differently coloured than France, since Swiss French has more sensible numbers.
Hupf@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
!mapporn@lemmy.world
puppinstuff@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
Quatre-vingt douze isn’t incredibly onerous when you use it in practice.
jwmgregory@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
hard agree i actually think france’s method of counting is pretty intuitive
name_NULL111653@pawb.social 5 weeks ago
Agreed. Fourscore and twelve just works (English used to use this, at least in formal speech and writing).
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Yeah France is fine
CherryBullets@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
French language uses math to speak words if anyone is wondering about France.
NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Not quite. They just have remnants of an old base 20 system that kicks in for specific numbers.
hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
Finnish is actually 9*10+2
Yhdeksänkymmentäkaksi
Yhdeksän = nine
Kymmentä = of ten
Kaksi = two
Luccus@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
Isn’t it mostly 9*10+2? 9 * ty (implying 10) + 2.
Even german does that, although weirdly the way you can’t just write down long numbers reasily one by one: Zwei (2) und ((and) neun- (9) -zig (*10)).
Enkrod@feddit.org 5 weeks ago
Note to self: For learning a scandinavian language - learn Swedish instead of Danish.
hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
If you learn swedish, you can speak danish. Just put a hot potato in your mouth
ap10336@diaspodon.fr 5 weeks ago
@ObviouslyNotBanana Ninety-two → Nine-ty-two → 9x10+2 :troll:
samus12345@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie…
Botzo@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
samus12345@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
That still fits the pattern of “bigger number, then smaller number.”
slappypantsgo@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
Is this a Michael Hobbes joke?
letsgo@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
We can also do 2+90 here in the UK. There’s a nursery rhyme about “four and twenty blackbirds” that I think the kids are still learning.
kameecoding@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
The map is wrong, Czechs can do both 2+90 and 90+2, I am not sure if it’s regional within the country, or depends on the context, but they definitely use both versions
sloppychops@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
shakes fist THE DANES!
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 5 weeks ago
Your coloration took an innocent map of Europe and somehow made the thumbnail look dirty. Good job!
Blackmist@feddit.uk 5 weeks ago
That’s four goddamn numbers in a row!
Valmond@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
97
4x20 + 10 + 7
roguetrick@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Four score and twelve.
HamsterRage@lemmy.ca 5 weeks ago
93= Four score and a baker’s dozen.
adi_2787@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
And the French way isn’t rotten? Lmao
ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
It’s bad, but not danish bad
VonReposti@feddit.dk 5 weeks ago
Even worse. 90 in old Danish is “halvfemsindstyve” but it is rarely used today. The “sinds” part is derived from “sinde” means multiplied with but it is not in use in Danish anymore. That leaves halvfems, meaning half to the five (which is not used alone anymore) and tyve meaning twenty (as it still does).
We are in current Danish shortening it to halvfems which actually just means “half to the five” in old Danish (2.5) to say 90. 92 is then “tooghalvfems” (two and half to the five, or 2+2.5). The “sindstyve” part (multiplied with 20) fell out of favour.
So we at least have some rules to the madness. Were just not following the at all anymore.
HorreC@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
How did you guys even get to this thought process for saying this sort of thing? Why would you work in fractions for whole numbers in language to start? Is this a monarch thing like they fancied themselves a math wizard so they said it like it was a solution on countdown and others mimicked to keep them happy/sound smart themselves?
VonReposti@feddit.dk 5 weeks ago
The reason is that the Danish numbering system is based on a vigesimal (base-20) system instead of the decimal system. Why is a good question but it might have been influenced by French during a time where numbers from 50-100 is less frequently used, making them prone to complexity. The fractions simply occur since you need at least one half of twenty (10) to make the change from e.g 50 to 60 in a 20-based system.
thebestaquaman@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Little fun-fact: We still have a trace of this left in Norwegian, where the most common way to say “1.5” is not “en og en halv” (“one and a half”) but “halvannen” which roughly translates to “half second”.
We abandoned the “half third”, “half fourth” etc. very long ago (if we ever used them), but “halvannen” just rolls nicely off the tongue.
Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
Dane here. My guess is utter madness resulting from a history of overdosing on fly agaric filtered through the urine of slaves, followed by a distressingly long period of Catholicism.
Frankly, it’s a wonder that our ancestors didn’t come up with an even MORE bizarre way of saying numbers and other things!
ignotum@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
When I’m in Denmark and have to say 92 I just say “kamelåså”
StThicket@reddthat.com 5 weeks ago
Syglekole?
te_abstract_art@lemmy.world 5 weeks ago
Oh man, that takes me back.
If you haven’t seen it, enjoy
skvlp@lemm.ee 5 weeks ago
(5-0,5)20 = 4,520 = 90? 2+((5-0,5)20) = 2+(4,520) = 2 + 90 = 92?
lugal@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 weeks ago
I love how halvfems exists but fems doesn’t (and I guess it never did)