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Cheshire ,

On a similar note: In German, “seven hundred fifty three” would be said as “seven hundred three and fifty”.

At least it’s consistent - starting at “thirteen” , which is “three ten”, up to ninety nine, which is “nine and ninety”, the multiples of ten come last.

It is pretty annoying, though, when a number like 123’456’789 is spoken as 132-465-798, though.

Apparently, it’s because in old Germanic, the numbers were spoken “backwards” (one hundred twenty three being spoken as “three and twenty and hundred”), and we only partially reversed that.

Echrichor ,

deleted_by_author

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    DragonTypeWyvern ,

    Normally I don’t support English imperialism, as the root of the majority of the modern world’s evils, BUT

    Chickenstalker ,

    The French is the reason English is a clusterfuck of inconsistent grammar and spelling.

    elscallr ,
    @elscallr@lemmy.world avatar

    Well and German, and some other Latin languages, and a bit of Nordic/Slavic languages, and all the other languages whose pockets English rifled for loose vocabulary.

    I love the language, honestly, I love how completely and unapologetically a clusterfuck it is, but it’s a clusterfuck.

    some_guy ,

    Highly Irregular: Why Tough, Through, and Dough Don’t Rhyme―And Other Oddities of the English Language

    You are the person I’ve been waiting to recommend this book. It’s fascinating. It was wild to see everything explained. It all has very good reasons for being completely insane, but it gave me a much deeper appreciation for why it is as is.

    And for those of you too lazy to read a book, here’s a podcast interview with the author:

    99percentinvisible.org/…/corpse-corps-horse-and-w…

    BlueMagma ,

    I’ve seen this coutless times, and as a french native I’m getting tired of this, I want to tell you that no french think of it that way.

    You know how you have “eleven” “twelve” and then you switch to “xxteen” for the next 6 number ? You never dissociate them, because that’s just the way it is. French are the same “douze”, “treize”… and then suddenly “dix-sept” but nobody dissociate them, this is just one word that means “17”

    And then it’s the same with “seventy”, french don’t dissociate 60 and 10 in their mind, it’s just one word. Sure from an ethymologic standpoint it comes from two word but it’s not how we think about it.

    When you say “sunday” you never think “day of the sun”, when you say “blueberry”, “blackberry” you don’t think of the color, you think of the particular fruit, everybody can see the origin of the word, but nonetheless the word is one unit.

    Anyway. Yes it is weird to learn a new language and see how it evolved into a weird mess, but please know that when you make this kind of comment you don’t look like you are well informed about the french language, you just look like kids that have learned a new word and can’t stop using it everywhere.

    gjghkk ,

    I want to tell you that no french think of it that way.

    Of course not, that’s the point though. It is your first language, so for you that’s the norm. But for the rest of the world with another language that’s weird as fuck.

    C_Leviathan ,

    Nah, it’s weird, that dude’s just touchy.

    johnlobo ,

    nah, you guys are just weird.

    elscallr ,
    @elscallr@lemmy.world avatar

    There’s only one place a French native gets this wound up about a joke. Are you Parisian?

    BlueMagma ,

    I am not, but I’ve seen this jokes so many times online…

    C_Leviathan ,

    Uh, French is my first language and I’ve definitely thought that four-twenty-ten-seven was a weird as fuck way to say ninety-seven since I was a kid.

    Hadriscus ,

    It doesn’t matter, it’s just something every child learns by heart and doesn’t question. You don’t have to be offended by this post, it’s just funny

    BlueMagma ,

    Not particularly offended, but just tired of seeing this jokes which I think is not really accurate, and it’s like an entry level joke about french language, there could be so many ways to make fun of french

    Hadriscus ,

    Jokes aren’t meant to be accurate, don’t fret

    moitoi ,

    This doesn’t apply to all french speaking regions. Switzerland use septante and nonante and in some regions of the country also huitante.

    Nariom ,

    was gonna say props to Switzerland and Belgium for having proper numbers :) idk why we don’t switch

    Hadriscus ,

    Probably because the cost of switching isn’t worth it. Same reasoning as the imperial system and driving on the left (barbaric, I know)

    olosta ,

    The “four twenties” might seems more familiar to americans by replacing “twenties” by “score” as in : " four score and seven years ago…"

    some_guy ,

    Yeah, that’s weird too.

    Pregnenolone ,

    “seventeen, eighteen, nineteen… ten… ten ten”

    Kecessa , (edited )

    Meanwhile all french speakers understand each other perfectly well.

    Do English speakers mistake people saying ninety-nine (99) for them saying ninety nine (90, 9)? No? How come? It’s the same thing as in french!

    reeen ,

    Right, but the tens numeral and the ones numeral being separate words that you add makes more sense than occasionally throwing a curveball like 20×4+5

    Kecessa ,

    But it’s still clear what we’re saying when we speak. 4 20 5 vs 4, 20, 5 vs 4, 20 5 vs 4 20, 5, non of it sounds the same when we speak.

    kryptonianCodeMonkey ,

    Do you not have the same issue with all numbers under 70? 62 or (60, 2)? And you still have that problem for numbers in the seventies too, it just looks weirder in decimals. "Did you mean (60, 11) or 71?

    Even if there is a possible silver lining, it’s still arbitrary and weird.

    Kecessa , (edited )

    And in English it would be 71 or 70, 1. I’m just pointing out that this meme about french by english speakers makes no sense since it’s the same thing in english.

    kryptonianCodeMonkey ,

    I think you’ve missed the point entirely if that is what you think the meme was about

    NOSin ,

    Obligatory m.youtube.com/watch?v=9rmBqIFeHN8

    Blyfh ,

    I think this actually roots in the problems of conversion to base ten from base twelve. Not sure though, maybe I remembered this wrong.

    DarthCluck ,

    Being lazy and not going to look it up. I can’t help it to wonder if it’s also based in Sumerian’s base 60

    monsieur_jean ,

    It's base 20.

    80 in French is 4 x 20. A long time ago, 60 was "trois-vingt", 3 x 20. We still have a hospital in Paris called "Hopital des Quinze-Vingts", 15 x 20 because it used to have 300 beds.

    Blyfh ,

    Oh, neat! Thanks for clearing this up.

    atlasraven31 ,

    Deutsch: 2andThirty

    VanRijn29 ,

    Dickensian English: in the year eighteen hundred four-and-thirty

    barsoap ,

    Much more regular than English where you have seven-teen but then seventy-one. To be consistent you’d need to switch to either teen-seven or one-seventy.

    atlasraven31 ,

    I’m okay with saying seven, ten-seven, twenty-seven, etc…

    sp451 ,

    Wait until you hear what the Danes do.

    Why is “97” “7 + [-½+5] x 20” in Danish?

    jose-lesson.com/lin/2017/01/16/nonaginta-septem/

    Creazle OP ,
    @Creazle@lemmy.world avatar

    No kidding. It’s the sort of thing that makes you think about how different people process info differently

    nxfsi ,

    Normal children usually gain fluency in their native language by age 5. Danish children need to wait until age 7.

    VikingHippie ,

    TIL that there’s actually (kinda but not really) a method to the madness that is our numbers 😄

    Holyhandgrenade ,
    @Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world avatar

    It’s kind of funny how aware Danes are of their weird numbers system. I speak Norwegian and whenever I’m in Denmark they use the more sensible Norwegian number system to explain to me the prices of stuff (probably because I give them the deer in the headlights-stare whenever I hear something like “fem og halvfjerds”).

    Comment105 ,

    They think we’re stupid and infantile for evolving past tradition.

    v_krishna ,
    @v_krishna@lemmy.ml avatar

    I’m otherwise decently fluent in Danish (first learned nynorsk then lived in Denmark for a few years). But when numbers come out I immediately switch back to Norwegian. Fucking Danes.

    volvoxvsmarla ,

    Thanks for the link! While I was aware of the weird numbers in Danish, this gave a great explanation and I wish I had had this info when I was forced to learn French in school. The way this vigntisian system evolved is actually quite interesting and makes so much sense. Everything makes sense now. Wow.

    Username ,
    @Username@feddit.nl avatar

    … Four Twenties Ten Nine, Hundred

    BarrelAgedBoredom ,

    999? 199? What?

    AlmightySnoo ,
    @AlmightySnoo@lemmy.world avatar

    he meant 99, the French read it as 4x20+10+9

    Norgur ,

    English: What's that?
    German: "Was ist das?"
    Dutch: "Wat is dat?"
    Spanish: ¿Qué es eso?
    French: "qu'est-ce-que c'est ?"

    What. the fuck?!

    Jean_Mich_Much ,
    @Jean_Mich_Much@jlai.lu avatar

    Agree. But you can say “C’est quoi ?” too. More “street language” but it’s okay

    investorsexchange ,
    @investorsexchange@lemmy.ca avatar

    «Qu’est-ce que c’est que ce bordel ?»

    Jean_Mich_Much ,
    @Jean_Mich_Much@jlai.lu avatar

    Hahaha “C’est quoi cette merde ?”

    A_A , (edited )
    @A_A@lemmy.world avatar

    French-Québec : “Kossé ça?”
    French also : “C’est quoi?”
    … or : “Qu’est-ce?”

    Word for word of "qu’est-ce-que c’est ?” …
    …goes like : "What’s this that this is?
    …or : “What’s this which this is?”

    “Qu’est-ce?” sounds like the english “Case”.
    Since this is just one syllable it might be difficult to hear out of context.
    Edit : Delayed 8h because of DDOS attack

    readthemessage ,

    I ended up replying to the original comment, but your translation to English made me realize that in Portuguese we commonly say “O que que é isso?” which is basically “qu’est-ce-que c’est?”

    monsieur_jean ,

    Although most French say "Qu'est-ce que c'est", it is worthy to note that the proper/formal French is "Qu'est-ce?". So strictly equivalent to "What is that", word for word. :)

    Zagorath ,
    @Zagorath@aussie.zone avatar

    Then ask someone who hasn’t learnt French how many syllables there are in “qu’est-ce que c’est ?” And watch the look of horror on their face when you tell them it’s just 3.

    readthemessage ,

    In Portuguese we actually can say “O que é isso?”, basically the same as in Spanish, but I’d say I use more commonly “O que que é isso?”, which seems closer to French version. Funny, had never thought about it like that.

    DokPsy ,

    Portuguese is what happens when a Spaniard speaks French while hungover

    anonymous5432 ,

    And the French is pronounced keskecè. Half the letters are silent because why not

    someguy3 ,

    With the exception of Eleven and Twelve, English is actually pretty good at this.

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