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Danish numbers

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31–32 of 32 posts

Re: Danish numbers

#31
post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 Sla…

True, sound changes like dvesti÷trista÷semsot make learning harder, but i'd say that's not really the property of the number system but of a language as a whole, since similar shifts are present in other places too.

For me Russian numbers were simpler than French because you could learn the basic idea quickly, and then pick up subtle sound shifts by watching tv/reading.

(disclaimer, i am not a native speaker but learned Russian at school age so may be misgudging the difficulty of the language)

Re: Danish numbers

#32

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_…

If the german -zig is at all similar to the dutch -tig as in 'negentig' then it'll mean something roughly equivalent to "a lot"
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