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?
4: Persian, English, Chinese, French
I used to be able to do so in Esperanto and Arabic as well but not anymore.
Oooo, I want to learn Persian, just for the script. I had a Persian girl friend briefly who taught me to spell my same; I’ve long since forgotten, but it’s gorgeous.
When I met her, she insisted she was Persian. When I pressed her about it, she said it was for safety, because we were in the middle of Iran-Contra and she was worried telling people she was Iranian would get her animosity. Back then, I thought that was silly, but then, it turns out she understood my countrymen better than I did.
Thanks for sharing your story.
If I weren’t born Iranian, I’d learn Persian too just for the beautiful poems and songs that I haven’t seen in any other language (Arabic and Urdu could come close though).
English, French, maybe German, binary and hexadecimal
Although hexadecimal might be considered cheating
Points for creativity!
English, German, Spanish, ASL… 4
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.
chinese (epiphany) german (language class) english (epiphany) french (hamilton) japanese (karate) spanish (language class) in no particular order (provenance)
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.
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.
English, Hebrew, Spanish, and 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.
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 and French. I don’t speak German or French but I am still learning German (my school forced me to learn French from when I was 7 to when I was 14, but it was taught to poorly to me until I was 13 that I dropped it as soon as I could and the only things I remember are the numbers)
Uno, dos, très, quatro, cinco cinco, ses
3 to 10 but 6 to 5
25 or 6 to 4
You’re pretty fly
For a white guy
… 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
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.
- The same 3 I knew back in kindergarten. But I totally forgot one of them for a long while, which is the one I choose to use when I started kindergarten and resulted in my mom getting a call because I supposedly didn’t know how to count.
Not fluent in either of the two non-native languages. My peak was probably 5, but two of which were only for a couple years max and very similar.
5: English, German, French, Spanish, and Japanese.
