this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2025
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[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 day ago

Finnish is actually 9*10+2

Yhdeksänkymmentäkaksi

Yhdeksän = nine

Kymmentä = of ten

Kaksi = two

[–] schibutzu@lemm.ee 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I'm actually impressed by this map. The French speaking part of Switzerland is not only differentiated from the German speaking part, it is also differently coloured than France, since Swiss French has more sensible numbers.

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[–] Luccus@feddit.org 10 points 1 day ago

Isn't it mostly 9*10+2? 9 * ty (implying 10) + 2.

Even german does that, although weirdly the way you can't just write down long numbers reasily one by one: Zwei (2) und ((and) neun- (9) -zig (*10)).

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 26 points 1 day ago (5 children)

That meme is so lame. 92 in Danish is two and a half fives. The 20 part is old-fashioned and literally nobody has used that since the 1800s.

2 and a half fives' twentieth = outdated cringe. 2 and a half fives = actually how it is said today.

It's still a friggin nightmare to get someone's Phone number verbally, though.

[–] JacksonLamb@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

That only makes it worse.

Two and a half fives = 12.5.

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

More like 2 and half fives. Half five is our word for 90. So in essence we say 2 and 90 but the word 90 is half five.

80 is fours

70 is half fours

60 is threes

50 is half threes

40 is forty

30 is thirty

20 is twenty

10 is ten.

Oh and a 100 is a hundred. So I dunno what happened between 50 and 90, but I'm sure there is a funny story behind that somewhere.

[–] JacksonLamb@lemmy.world 1 points 18 hours ago* (last edited 18 hours ago)

More like 2 and half fives.

Even worse! That would be an indeterminate number that starts at 7 and goes up by 2.5 increments depending on how many half fives there are (since in this version it's not specified, but has to be more than one).

7, 9.5, 12, 14.5...

I love this. I thought English had some crazy aspects but this is next level.

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)

You're just digging yourself and Denmark into deeper hole. It's fucked up and you know it

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[–] petersr@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

Dane here. No one actively thinks of 90 (halvfems, 2 and a half fives) as a mathematical expression. Is is just a word for 90. So we say 2+90 like Germany.

Would it have been nice if that word meant "9 tens", yes, but Danish is a just a stupid language where you have to learn a bunch of things by heart unfortunately.

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[–] 1337@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Not Danish here... Isn't that 12.5?

[–] drmoose@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's breaking my brain too, what is this cryptography lmao

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 5 points 1 day ago

When you have to write down numbers, but the person reading you the numbers speaks slowly 💀

Them: "Two..."

Me: "2"

Them: "... and fifty"

Me: "... ~~2~~ - 52"

Them: "Six..."

Me: "6"

Them: "... and twenty."

Me: "~~6~~ - 26"

🫠

[–] GoosLife@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

No, in Danish the "half five" part means the same as "half past 4" on the clock: 4.5.

Then the part that most people omit nowadays, sindstyvende, means times 20.

(Half past 4) times 20 = 90.

[–] ObviouslyNotBanana@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Denmark = outdated cringe

Just kidding neighbor, I love you all

[–] Nangijala@feddit.dk 4 points 1 day ago (2 children)
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[–] FilthyShrooms@lemmy.world 48 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Ehh, i'm not giving France a pass either.

The answer to 100 - 8 should not be four twenties and a twelve. We're counting, not making change.

French counting is bunk. Way, Way, better then Denmark though apparently

[–] Nariom@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (3 children)

the thing nobody mentions is that the 4x20 part became a word that just means 80 in people's mind, it kinda not literal anymore, but the Swiss and Belgian ways are still better (edit the 4x20+10 is similarly just 90)

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[–] Enkrod@feddit.org 9 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Note to self: For learning a scandinavian language - learn Swedish instead of Danish.

[–] hemko@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 day ago

If you learn swedish, you can speak danish. Just put a hot potato in your mouth

[–] Atomic@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] Enkrod@feddit.org 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Why do Danes all have a potato in their mouth?

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[–] CherryBullets@lemmy.ca 13 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

French language uses math to speak numbers if anyone is wondering about France.

Edit: Apparently I wasn't precise enough for the dude below. It starts at 70 and ends at 99 every time you get to those numbers. De rien, tabarnak.

[–] NikkiDimes@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Not quite. They just have remnants of an old base 20 system that kicks in for specific numbers.

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[–] atro_city@fedia.io 61 points 2 days ago (18 children)

For a real explanation of this watch this illuminating video.

TL;DW According to the perons, it's based on counting sheep and from base 20. 1 score = 20 sheep. 2 score = 40 sheep.
To get to 50, you have 2.5 score, but they don't say "two and a half". They are quite Germanic and say "halfway to 3" (Germans do this too). So, 50 = half three score.

The video also points out that English has (as the hodgepodge of a language it is) yet another remnant of Germanic languages: 13-19 are not "te(e)n-three to te(e)n-nine", but "three-te(e)n to nine-te(e)n", just like in German "drei-zehn bis neun-zehn".

It's quite easy to mock other languages, but there's always a reason for why things are the way they are. Think of Chesterton's fence.

[–] MisterFrog@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

I agree 13 -19 in English are out of place, and 11-12 are left over from duodecimal, however changing some spoken order is way less cursed that doing fraction multiplication.

I for one, would love if we started saying ten-one, ten-two, etc.

This small part of Danish is definitely fair game to tease. It's all in good fun!

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[–] slappypantsgo@lemm.ee 4 points 1 day ago

Is this a Michael Hobbes joke?

[–] VonReposti@feddit.dk 119 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (21 children)

Even worse. 90 in old Danish is "halvfemsindstyve" but it is rarely used today. The "sinds" part is derived from "sinde" means multiplied with but it is not in use in Danish anymore. That leaves halvfems, meaning half to the five (which is not used alone anymore) and tyve meaning twenty (as it still does).

We are in current Danish shortening it to halvfems which actually just means "half to the five" in old Danish (2.5) to say 90. 92 is then "tooghalvfems" (two and half to the five, or 2+2.5). The "sindstyve" part (multiplied with 20) fell out of favour.

So we at least have some rules to the madness. Were just not following them at all anymore.

[–] HorreC@lemmy.world 37 points 2 days ago (9 children)

How did you guys even get to this thought process for saying this sort of thing? Why would you work in fractions for whole numbers in language to start? Is this a monarch thing like they fancied themselves a math wizard so they said it like it was a solution on countdown and others mimicked to keep them happy/sound smart themselves?

[–] VonReposti@feddit.dk 40 points 2 days ago (8 children)

The reason is that the Danish numbering system is based on a vigesimal (base-20) system instead of the decimal system. Why is a good question but it might have been influenced by French during a time where numbers from 50-100 is less frequently used, making them prone to complexity. The fractions simply occur since you need at least one half of twenty (10) to make the change from e.g 50 to 60 in a 20-based system.

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[–] puppinstuff@lemmy.ca 17 points 1 day ago (4 children)

Quatre-vingt douze isn’t incredibly onerous when you use it in practice.

[–] Obi@sopuli.xyz 8 points 1 day ago

Quatre-vingt dix huit or quatre-vingt dix neuf are definitely more of a mouthful and illustrate the point better.

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[–] StThicket@reddthat.com 44 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Norway used to count like the Germans, but switched after the introduction of the telephone. There were simply too many mistakes when telling the numbers to the operators, that a change was mandated.

Old people might still use the 2+90 variant though, but it is not very common.

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[–] Venus_Ziegenfalle@feddit.org 58 points 2 days ago (17 children)

I'm German and our way of counting is genuinely stupid. 121 would translate to "onehundred one and twenty". You'd think it's just a matter of practice but errors related to mixing up digits are statistically more common in German speaking regions. Awesome when it comes to stuff like calculating medication dosages and such. Like it's not a huge issue but it's such an unneccessary layer of confusion.

[–] Ziglin@lemmy.world 2 points 6 hours ago

I'm bilingual and switch back and forth a lot between languages when I'm not home. As such I often mess this up half way through calculating something.

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 3 points 1 day ago

That's four goddamn numbers in a row!

[–] LocoLobo@lemm.ee 28 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Fun fact, english used to count the same way as german, and it still has the numbers in "reverse" from 13 to 19.

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[–] letsgo@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago

We can also do 2+90 here in the UK. There's a nursery rhyme about "four and twenty blackbirds" that I think the kids are still learning.

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