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.
- My native language is English
- 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.
- 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.
- I taught myself Esperanto a couple of decades ago, and used to hang out in Esperanto chat rooms. I haven’t kept up.
- 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?
I can count to ten in just four languages, sadly.
Four is pretty good!
Japanese, English, ASL, and Spanish. Those are my four.
I’m trying to get my Japanese back to as good as it was before I came to America-proper; I spent my childhood on an Air Force base and went to a school in rural Japan. Then I learned English, and with it, my Japanese started rotting. Started really trying hard to get decent at it again for the last decade. It comes, but slowly.
I can count to ten in Spanish cause that’s the second-place language out here, and ASL cause doing 20 counts on one hand is stupid useful and I love it.
It’s so hard without immersion!
English, German, French, Dutch, Finnish.
With a bit of effort I might get pretty close in Spanish or Latin, but I’d probably make some mistakes, so that doesn’t count.
Four. In one of them, literally only up to 10. The other 3, much higher.
English, Spanish, russian
5
Uno, dos, très, quatro, cinco cinco, ses
… siete, ocho, nueve, des!
Hah! I just needed to get started!
Spelling is probably horrible wrong, but Ima take it. 7! 7 languages, ah, ah, aahhh!
You know it’s kinda hard
3 to 10 but 6 to 5
25 or 6 to 4
You’re pretty fly
For a white guy
Just 3; English, Spanish and Japanese.
1-10 was actually like the first or second lesson I had in Japanese, along with phrases related to telling time or paying for things.
2: English and Japanese. (Took Karate classes as a kid)
Hah! Aikido was how I learned counting in Japanese!
I like learning languages so with that in mind: German, Dutch, French, Swedish, Estonian, Russian, Afrikaans, Japanese, Mandarin, Korean, Irish and Latin. I don’t speak all of them thought.
English:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Spanish:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
French:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
German:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Italian:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Greek:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Mongolian:
᠐ ᠑ ᠒ ᠓ ᠔ ᠕ ᠖ ᠗ ᠘ ᠙ ᠑᠐
damn mongorians
The accent on the German is rather thick, though.
You know Malay too.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
You show a good mastery of the hindu-arabic numerals.
Cool idea. Got a few where I might know just enough to pass this.
attempts collapsed
One two three four five six seven eight nine ten
Ett två tre fyra fem sex sju åtta nio tio
Ein zwei drei vier fünf sechs sieben acht neun zehn
Yksi kaksi kolme neljä viisi kuusi seitsemän kahdeksan yhdeksän kymmenen
Üks kaks kolm neli viis kuus seitse kaheksa üheksa kümme
I never remember German 9 and 10 because the song only goes up to 8.
For 9, just remember 99 Luftballons. It’s literally “nine und ninety”.
the song only goes up to 8.
The link to clarify which song is a bit redundant lol
Ha yeah, figured someone might disagree about which song to call THE song or just haven’t heard this one.
Hmnm. Is 2 Swedish? Danish?
What languages are numbers four and five?
2 is Swedish. I’m not sure how much Danish and Norwegian differ. 4 and 5 are Finnish and Estonian.
Three: English, Welsh, German.
I used to be able to do French, Italian and Japanese, but I’ve managed to forget everything above about five.
That’s my problem. I live in the US, and there’s essentially no opportunity to verbally practice anything. The only options, really, would be Hindi or Spanish, and where I live there’s a significant Somali immigrant community, but if you don’t use it, you lose it!
My girlfriend in HS had a German mother and a Japanese father. Her mother left Germany when she was 16. After I came back from my extended stay in Germany, speaking fluid German, I visited her parents, and tried to have a conversation with her mother in German. After a few minutes, she said - a little sadly - that she just didn’t remember German anymore because it had been so long since she’d spoken it.
Russian as native
English as expected
Danish as I’m integrating
Korean as I was doing Taekwondo (can’t say much more actually)I speak three languages and I can count in ten.
Not a hard guess, to be honest, lots of people pick up numbers from popular culture (Spanish songs are big on counting, but weirdly, German ones as well). And if you study an Eastern martial art, chances are you’ll learn to count to ten in the corresponding language from your instructor.
Or I don’t know, maybe my brain is weird and I’m collecting numbers, that’s a non-zero possibility.
chinese (epiphany) german (language class) english (epiphany) french (hamilton) japanese (karate) spanish (language class) in no particular order (provenance)
