Ok, Lemmy, let’s play a game!
Post how many languages in which you can count to ten, including your native language. If you like, provide which languages. I’m going to make a guess; after you’ve replied, come back and open the spoiler. If I’m right: upvote; if I’m wrong: downvote!
My guess, and my answer...
My guess is that it’s more than the number of languages you speak, read, and/or write.
Do you feel cheated because I didn’t pick a number? Vote how you want to, or don’t vote! I’m just interested in the count.
I can count to ten in five languages, but I only speak two. I can read a third, and I once was able to converse in a fourth, but have long since lost that skill. I know only some pick-up/borrow words from the 5th, including counting to 10.
- My native language is English
- I lived in Germany for a couple of years; because I never took classes, I can’t write in German, but I spoke fluently by the time I left.
- I studied French in college for three years; I can read French, but I’ve yet to meet a French person who can understand what I’m trying to say, and I have a hard time comprehending it.
- I taught myself Esperanto a couple of decades ago, and used to hang out in Esperanto chat rooms. I haven’t kept up.
- I can count to ten in Japanese because I took Aikido classes for a decade or so, and my instructor counted out loud in Japanese, and the various movements are numbered.
I can almost count to ten in Spanish, because I grew up in mid-California and there was a lot of Spanish thrown around. But French interferes, and I start in Spanish and find myself switching to French in the middle, so I’m not sure I could really do it.
Bonus question: do you ever do your counting in a non-native language, just to make it more interesting?
Lol do we count swedish, norweigan and danish as different languages? Btw other languages are my two native ones: hungarian and english, and then i know spanish because i had it in highschool and i lived 4 months there(cant really speak it anymore sadly) and then croatian because i had one if my friends teach it to me. I used to know some japanese but i also forgot that so without that the total is 5 i guess.
Bonus answer: as for everyday counting i do it either in hungarian or english so no i dont count in my non-native languages. My brain gets fried if i try to do maths for example in swedish. If i do english maths its no problem but i still prefer hungarian when i do large calculations without any paper.
Yes, the Germanic languages all count separately. Canadian French doesn’t count differently from France French because they call it “French” and it’s essentially completely understandable. I’ve known Bavarians who insist Hamburgers are unintelligible, although it’s all German.
I can almost understand Danish. Almost. Words, here and there. But not Swedish at all.
For the purposes of this count, if it’s called a different name, it’s a different language, regardless of how closely related. If it’s called the same language, but they’ve drifted dialectically so much natives can barely understand each other, it’s still the same language.
Uno, dos, très, quatro, cinco cinco, ses
You’re pretty fly
For a white guy
3 to 10 but 6 to 5
25 or 6 to 4
You know it’s kinda hard
… siete, ocho, nueve, des!
Hah! I just needed to get started!
Spelling is probably horrible wrong, but Ima take it. 7! 7 languages, ah, ah, aahhh!
I speak three languages and I can count in ten.
Not a hard guess, to be honest, lots of people pick up numbers from popular culture (Spanish songs are big on counting, but weirdly, German ones as well). And if you study an Eastern martial art, chances are you’ll learn to count to ten in the corresponding language from your instructor.
Or I don’t know, maybe my brain is weird and I’m collecting numbers, that’s a non-zero possibility.
English:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Spanish:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
French:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
German:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Italian:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Greek:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Mongolian:
᠐ ᠑ ᠒ ᠓ ᠔ ᠕ ᠖ ᠗ ᠘ ᠙ ᠑᠐
The accent on the German is rather thick, though.
damn mongorians
You know Malay too.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
You show a good mastery of the hindu-arabic numerals.
2: English and Japanese. (Took Karate classes as a kid)
Hah! Aikido was how I learned counting in Japanese!
german english latin italian spanish japanese
Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Latin, Kmer.
Wow. Impressive list!
Yeah, no issue with counting to 10. The rest however… Im really bad in learning languages, I’ve had German and French in school for 13 years yet I can’t speak either. I know English besides Dutch because of the internet and subtitles on TV. I wanted to learn languages like Norwegian, Latin and Russian but I gave up because I just don’t remember words that well. Same with history, I remember stories but can’t remember dates. I’m better at logic, like math and chemistry. But at least I know how to order up to 10 beers in multiple languages.
at least I know how to order up to 10 beers in multiple languages.
Critical life skills !
Most languages go all wonky after 10. German is pretty regular after 12 (12 is such an important number in human history!), French is absolutely insane. Conlangs like Esperanto are the really only highly regular ones.
German and Dutch (my native language) are similar systems. Still weird imo, naming the numbers in the wrong sequence: 32 is “two and thirty” instead of “thirty two”.
Check out the system of Denmark. French looks rather normal after seeing the Danish.
I love this map!
English Spanish and Japanese
- The same 3 I knew back in kindergarten. But I totally forgot one of them for a long while, which is the one I choose to use when I started kindergarten and resulted in my mom getting a call because I supposedly didn’t know how to count.
Not fluent in either of the two non-native languages. My peak was probably 5, but two of which were only for a couple years max and very similar.
I can count to ten in just four languages, sadly.
Four is pretty good!
Japanese, English, ASL, and Spanish. Those are my four.
I’m trying to get my Japanese back to as good as it was before I came to America-proper; I spent my childhood on an Air Force base and went to a school in rural Japan. Then I learned English, and with it, my Japanese started rotting. Started really trying hard to get decent at it again for the last decade. It comes, but slowly.
I can count to ten in Spanish cause that’s the second-place language out here, and ASL cause doing 20 counts on one hand is stupid useful and I love it.
It’s so hard without immersion!
I like learning languages so with that in mind: German, Dutch, French, Swedish, Estonian, Russian, Afrikaans, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Irish and Latin. I don’t speak all of them thought.
Just 3; English, Spanish and Japanese.
1-10 was actually like the first or second lesson I had in Japanese, along with phrases related to telling time or paying for things.
3.8
I can’t remember the German words for 8 and 9
Acht and neun.
Neun sounds like English nine, and acht is like October, which used to be the 8th month.
English, Maori, Japanese, Korean, Spanish
5: English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese.
