• Wiz@midwest.social
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        23 days ago

        I’m four-twenties-ten-nine percent sure that French counting is not confusing

      • zaphod@sopuli.xyz
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        22 days ago

        No you can’t, because the source has written it in the usual hindu-arabic numerals as 79,5 and not as “soixante-dix-neuf virgule cinq”, you don’t need to pronounce the numerals to copy them.

      • Whitebrow@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        People seem to be angry at you for not knowing how the French count. My condolences. I found it funny tho. Have un upvote

        • einkorn@discuss.tchncs.de
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          23 days ago

          Well, I DO know how the French count and compared to English it IS highly confusing. You can hardly convince me that saying “Four times twenty and ten” is as straight forward as saying “Nine tens”.

          And just to be clear: I’m not some Yankee or Brit with a superiority complex, no, I am German, and we have our own shitty version of this: Instead of moving along the digits from highest to lowest, as in “Four hundreds and two tens and nine”, we do “Four hundred and nine and two tens”.

          • BaardFigur@lemmy.world
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            22 days ago

            So they count like the danes? 79,5 in danish would be “ni og en halv fjers komma fem”.

            “Four hundred and nine and two tens”.

            We used to do this in Norway too, but it’s dying out now, because “Telegrafverket” made an effort to kill it, as it would make things easier for phone operators. Unfortunately it worked.

          • AA5B@lemmy.world
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            23 days ago

            Wow, it’s like US uses metric system for counting and y’all do “imperial counting”

          • FlorianSimon@sh.itjust.works
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            23 days ago

            It’s less confusing if you think of 70 and 90 as separate words without trying to analyze what its constituting words mean.

            But etymologically, sure, it makes no sense.

          • Smc87@lemmy.sdf.org
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            23 days ago

            The dude was saying people are angry at you because they don’t understand, not that you dont understand.

          • barsoap@lemm.ee
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            22 days ago

            Instead of moving along the digits from highest to lowest, as in “Four hundreds and two tens and nine”, we do “Four hundred and nine and two tens”.

            English is less consistent, going from nine-teen to twenty-one. German stays consistent with its lower two digits.

            • Rinox@feddit.it
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              22 days ago

              From 11 to 19 is always kind of weird in many languages. In Italian you go from essentially saying “one-ten” “two-ten”…“six-ten” to “ten-seven” “ten-eight” “ten-nine”. Then it goes in like in English. Why? No reason ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

      • Beryl@lemmy.world
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        23 days ago

        It supposedly comes from originaly counting in base 20 ( a.k.a : vigesimal system) in some proto-european language. There are traces of it in breton, albanese, basque and danish for example. Even in english, there is a reminiscence of vigesimal, in the “score”, see for example Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address which famously starts with : “Fourscore and seven years ago…”, meaning 87 years ago.