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Danish numbers

olestig.dk

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Re: Danish numbers

#11

Post by drblah »

I really wish the danish numbers had been reformed. It is a drag to communicate numbers verbally and then write them down. It is very prone to errors since the verbal number sequence is so strange.

Exampel: 54. It is pronounced: fire-og-halv-treds (four-and-half-threes.) As you might notice, the spoken sequence is backwards compared to the written number. this gets even more confusing when saying a number above 100. 136 is et-hundrede-og-seks-og-treidve. (One-hundreds-and-six-and-threes).

Re: Danish numbers

#12

Post by kristiandupont »

lordnacho wrote: post #4

> The "logic" of the system is NOT transparent nor generally known to native speakers. Totally true, you often find people wondering what exactly the pattern is. A good language teacher will tell you though. > A Scandinavist language reform movement tried to get the 20-based forms replaced by 10-based like Norwegian and Swedish have. With absolutely no success. If this is a real movement, they need better PR. I've ne…

>What's the point anyway?

Well it would be easier for learners to pick up for one, but I actually think the system is annoying, even as a native speaker. When someone tells me a phone number or similar, I will often ask them to read out the digits one by one because writing down the numbers can be difficult with the alternating order.

Re: Danish numbers

#13

Post by ivanche »

drblah wrote: post #11

I really wish the danish numbers had been reformed. It is a drag to communicate numbers verbally and then write them down. It is very prone to errors since the verbal number sequence is so strange. Exampel: 54. It is pronounced: fire-og-halv-treds (four-and-half-threes.) As you might notice, the spoken sequence is backwards compared to the written number. this gets even more confusing when saying a number above 100.…

And not only in Danish, unfortunately. In German it is vierundfünfzig (four and fifty) and einhundertsechsunddreißig (one hundred six and thirty). Crazy!

Re: Danish numbers

#14

Post by Bromskloss »

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/45/2c/2d/452c2d0569d1015f4a0b2ea27...

Edit: Now that I think about it, maybe the Swedish 90 (_nittio_) should be seen as "9×10" (_nio_×_tio_), since that's at least the etymology. I don't know what to make of the German _-zig_ in _neunzig_. Regarding Japanese, I dont' speak any. Finally, if you allow yourself to dig deep enough into the origins of the French and Danish 20 (_vingt_ and _tyve_, respectively), it appears that they too could be split further as "2×10".

Re: Danish numbers

#15

Post by andrewla »

dsr_ wrote: post #9

English: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty: normal from here on (twenty-five, seventy-three, one million forty-eight thousand five hundred seventy-six) Spanish: uno dos tres.... (15) quince, normal from 16 on. French: normal begins at 17 (dix-sept), but runs into trouble later on (courtesy of a friend): 70 - soixante-dix…

The other interesting thing about French is that Swiss French and Belgian French have both fixed this - ninety is “nonante” instead of “four twenty ten”. Belgians use “quatrevingt” instead of the Swiss French “huitante”, though.

The oddest thing of all is apparently the simplified form is an old French usage that got replaced by the Gettysburg-Address-style “four score” more recently. Why they would change in that direction is a mystery to me.

Re: Danish numbers

#16

Post by badminton1 »

In English, I've noted people do not like thousands. e.g:

- 20,000 is 20 k or 20 grand.

- 1900 is 19 hundreds not 1 thousand 9 hundred.

In Japanese numbers are also different:

- there's a word for 10,000 (man), therefore 20,000 is not "20 x 1,000" (ni jyu sen) but rather "2 x 10,000" (ni man).

- there's a word for 10^8 (oku), making 1 billion = jyu oku (10 * 10^8).

Re: Danish numbers

#17

Post by KozmoNau7 »

drblah wrote: post #11

I really wish the danish numbers had been reformed. It is a drag to communicate numbers verbally and then write them down. It is very prone to errors since the verbal number sequence is so strange. Exampel: 54. It is pronounced: fire-og-halv-treds (four-and-half-threes.) As you might notice, the spoken sequence is backwards compared to the written number. this gets even more confusing when saying a number above 100.…

Even worse, it's actually four-and-half-three-twenty or in plainer terms four, plus three and a half twenties.

Re: Danish numbers

#18

Post by lordnacho »

kristiandupont wrote: post #12
lordnacho wrote: post #4

> The "logic" of the system is NOT transparent nor generally known to native speakers. Totally true, you often find people wondering what exactly the pattern is. A good language teacher will tell you though. > A Scandinavist language reform movement tried to get the 20-based forms replaced by 10-based like Norwegian and Swedish have. With absolutely no success. If this is a real movement, they need better PR. I've ne…

>What's the point anyway? Well it would be easier for learners to pick up for one, but I actually think the system is annoying, even as a native speaker. When someone tells me a phone number or similar, I will often ask them to read out the digits one by one because writing down the numbers can be difficult with the alternating order.

That's another weird thing. You CAN read out a number as 8 individual digits, but most Danes will give you 4 two-digit numbers. It's almost a shibboleth, like that movie where the non-native German speaker uses his pointing finger instead of his thumb to count "one".

Re: Danish numbers

#19

Post by Mediterraneo10 »

chr1 wrote: post #10
dsr_ wrote: post #9

English: one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen fifteen sixteen seventeen eighteen nineteen twenty: normal from here on (twenty-five, seventy-three, one million forty-eight thousand five hundred seventy-six) Spanish: uno dos tres.... (15) quince, normal from 16 on. French: normal begins at 17 (dix-sept), but runs into trouble later on (courtesy of a friend): 70 - soixante-dix…

Russian numbers are ten based and rather straightforward; odin dva tri ... desyat (10) odinnadtsat dvenadtsat trinadtsat ... dvadtsat (20) there is no irregularity other than 40 which is sorok instead of chetiredesyat

Foreign learners do not generally find Russian numbers to be "straightforward". Not only do nouns qualified by numbers take different numerative cases (the genitive singular for 2–4, the genitive plural for 5–10), but the declension of compound numerals is also surprising for speakers of many languages.

Compound hundreds are also unpredictable. Yes, historically the varying forms are clear (the back yer in Common Slavonic sŭto ‘100’ was lost or strengthened depending on position), but learners today without any background in the Slavic languages simply need to learn them by rote.

Re: Danish numbers

#20

Post by FullyFunctional »

Bromskloss wrote: post #14

https://i.pinimg.com/736x/45/2c/2d/452c2d0569d1015f4a0b2ea27... Edit: Now that I think about it, maybe the Swedish 90 (_nittio_) should be seen as "9×10" (_nio_×_tio_), since that's at least the etymology. I don't know what to make of the German _-zig_ in _neunzig_. Regarding Japanese, I dont' speak any. Finally, if you allow yourself to dig deep enough into the origins of the French and Danish 20 (_vingt_ and _tyve_…

That is a beautifully succinct and funny capture. The French numbers confused me when I was learning (was it 420107, 42017, 8017, or 97?).

German, being logical and little endian, wins by getting the most significant part last, about when you finally pay attention :)

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