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.

  1. My native language is English
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. I taught myself Esperanto a couple of decades ago, and used to hang out in Esperanto chat rooms. I haven’t kept up.
  5. 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?

  • ThePancakeExperiment@feddit.org
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    2 days ago

    I can count to ten in more language than I am able to speak (I just love learning stuff):

    Can count above ten:
    German (native), English, Norwegian, Romanian, Russian, Japanese

    Can count only up to ten:
    French, Polish, Mandarin

    I am learning Romanian at the moment, those are 0-10: zero,
    unu/ una,
    doi/ două,
    trei,
    patru,
    cinci,
    șase,
    șapte,
    opt,
    nouă,
    zece

    • Lit@lemmy.world
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      16 hours ago

      Mandarin and Malay counting is very easy and consistent. You mainly just need to know until 10 or until 20 for malay. Malay uses English script, so you can read the numbers, too.

    • SoulKaribou@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      Well if you can count to ten in mandarin, you can count to 100.

      It’s literally 5 10 2, 5 10 3 for 52, 53 etc.

      Add one more word for hundreds, one more for thousands.

      After that it gets tough cause numbers beyond thousands are split by packs of 10 thousands, not hundred thousands like most western world (I guess).

      Similar to the lakh in Indian

      • ThePancakeExperiment@feddit.org
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        2 days ago

        Oh, just like in Japanese, did not know that, they have the ten thousands quirk too. Would love to learn more Chinese and other languages, but I lack free time.

        • SoulKaribou@lemmy.ml
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          1 day ago

          It’s coming from the abacus, meaning most likely all of Asian languages have this.

          I wonder about Arabic ones ?

    • jnod4@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      Quick question, why one would bother to learn romanian specifically? Family? Partners?