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?
Arabic, French, English, Chinese (mandarin), Russian.
One two three four five six seven eight nine ten (English)
Aon dó trí ceathar cúig sé seacht ocht naoi deich (Irish)
один два три четыре пять шесть семь восемь девять десять (Russian)
un deux troix quatre cinq six sept huit neuf dix (French)
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (cheating)
4:
- English (native)
- Spanish (school)
- French (school)
- Korean (Taekwondo)
Hopefully next week I’ll add Polish–I’m on day 3 of learning it in an app.
English, Spanish, French, Latin, Russian, German, Japanese, Cantonese, …
So 8. 10 is not very high. I’d have Arabic too, but I can only get to 5 :)
Edit: I can speak 3 of them, 2 passably, English natively. I took 5 of them in school. I had a Rammstein phase. 17 years Karate. And I dated a Hong Kong girl for 6 years and her family liked to play mah-jong but didn’t speak English.
I mentioned I lived in Germany for a couple of years, but a huge help was that I went through a Nina Hagen phase while I was there. Listening to music - the same music, repeatedly! - in the language can really help, can’t it?
Sure can. Even better if a song includes counting to 10, at least for the purposes of this post.
It doesn’t. It’s just “99” a bunch.
It’s too bad you skipped your Rammstein phase, you could learn how to count from 1 to 9!
Exactly! Just have to deliberately remember 10 is not “AUS!”
I have four and so does my wife! English, French, German, Spanish/Russian (learnt before it was uncool).
Edit: I remembered I can do Dutch as well. So 5 for me, 4 for her. I could only remember 4 and 5 in Latin, had to look the rest up.
Well, I’m a native Romanian, so I can count (and speak, to various degrees) in Romanian, Italian, Spanish and French. Also, I live in Germany, so add that to the list. Do we count English? If so, I guess 6?
I learned how to count to 10 and a few other random bits of Korean in Tae Kwon Do class.
English, Italian, Japanese, Mandarin
2: English and Japanese. (Took Karate classes as a kid)
Hah! Aikido was how I learned counting in Japanese!
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
The accent on the German is rather thick, though.
damn mongorians
You know Malay too.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
You show a good mastery of the hindu-arabic numerals.
English Spanish and Japanese
8
English (native) Spanish French German Hebrew Mandarin Japanese Finnish
English, French, German, Portuguese, Spanish, and Japanese. Nothing special tbh.
Turkish, English, German, Greek, Kurmanji, Japanese
Russian as native
English as expected
Danish as I’m integrating
Korean as I was doing Taekwondo (can’t say much more actually)
