• nxfsi@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

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

    • Holyhandgrenade@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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”).

      • v_krishna@lemmy.ml
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        1 year ago

        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.

    • Creazle@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

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

    • volvoxvsmarla @lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • Norgur@kbin.social
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    1 year ago

    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?!

    • A_A@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      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
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        1 year ago

        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?”

    • readthemessage
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      1 year ago

      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.

    • monsieur_jean@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      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@aussie.zone
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      1 year ago

      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.

  • moitoi@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

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

    • Nariom@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

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

      • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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        1 year ago

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

  • Pasta Dental@sh.itjust.works
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    The other day I decided I would stop saying quatre-vingt-dix (4, 20, 10 = 90) instead I would say huit-dix-dix (8, 10, 10) or even deux-quarante-dix (2, 40, 10) and shit like that

    to add some context i forgot about it an hour after

    • monsieur_jean@kbin.social
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      1 year ago
      • Combien pour ma commande ?
      • Alooors… Une bavette de trois livres et deux-cent trois vingt et douze grammes… Ca fera deux-vingt et sept euros et deux-vingt et cinq centimes s’il vous plait.
      • Tenez, voici un billet de deux-vingt et dix tout neuf !
      • Et voici votre monnaie, deux-vingt et quinze centimes et un comprimé d’aspirine.
      • Merci bonne journée !
      • De même !
  • redballooon@lemm.ee
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    1 year ago

    I think it was around that time in my French class, with my teacher just without any comment expecting us to take that seriously, that I decided that’s not a language I wanted to deal with.

  • olosta@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

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

  • BlueMagma@sh.itjust.works
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    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@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      1 year ago

      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.

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

    • Hadriscus@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      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@sh.itjust.works
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        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

    • C_Leviathan@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

  • Blyfh@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    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@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      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@kbin.social
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        1 year ago

        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.

  • Cheshire@feddit.de
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    1 year ago

    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.

    • barsoap@lemm.ee
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      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.