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Now, 92 is naw deg dau, or “nine ten two”, much like the system used in East Asian languages. Numbers in the modern Welsh system are very transparent. It’s normally hard to control for these factors when studying people from different cultures – but one language offers a fascinating solution. Of course, there are many other reasons why children from different countries might have different mathematical abilities, including how maths is taught and attitudes towards education. Those from the US, France or Sweden were more likely to use 42 individual unit blocks, while those from Japan or Korea were more likely to use four blocks of ten and two single-unit blocks, which suggests that the children’s early mental representation of numbers may have been shaped by their language. In one study, first-grade children were asked to represent numbers like 42 using blocks of tens and units. For example, children who count in East Asian languages may have a better understanding of the base-10 system. There’s growing evidence that the transparency of a counting system can affect the way we process numbers. Psychologists call systems like these “transparent”, where there is an obvious and consistent link between numbers and their names. Japanese and Korean also use similar conventions, where larger numbers are created by compounding the names for smaller ones. Here, 92 is written jiǔ shí èr, which translates as “nine ten two”. And in Danish, the word for 92 is tooghalvfems, where halvfems, meaning 90,is an abbreviation of the Old Norse word halvfemsindstyve, or “four and a half times twenty”.Īnd in English, words like “twelve” or “eleven” don’t give many clues as to the structure of the number itself (these names actually come from the Old Saxon words ellevan and twelif, meaning “one left” and “two left”, after 10 has been subtracted).Ĭontrast this with Mandarin Chinese, where the relationship between the tens and the units is very clear. What is the best age to learn a language?įor example, in French, 92 is quatre-vingt douze or “four twenties and twelve”.The most logical counting systems use words that reflect the structure of this system and have regular, straightforward rules – but many languages use complicated and messy conventions instead. Nearly all cultures today use the same decimal, or base-10, number system, which arranges the digits 0-9 into units, tens and hundreds, and so on. In fact, one Western country actually overhauled its entire counting system within the last century, to make it easier to teach and do mathematics. But it’s not just a matter of semantics – as early as 1798 scientists suggested that that the language we learn to count in could impact our numerical ability. Other languages do a much better job of describing digits. Which is why it might surprise you to hear that the English for 92 isn’t a great way to describe the number, and some languages are even worse. By the time we’re adults, the connection between numerals and their names is almost automatic, so we barely give them a second thought. Englishīes (that should have some cedille underneath the s.If I asked you to write down the number “ninety-two”, you wouldn’t have to think twice.
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Here will be the words in different languages, below will be the numerals in different alphabets. WordsĪll numbers can be represented in words, or in numerals (eg. Thank you! NB: Some letters will be wrong, I will find out the entity numbers soon. Please also tell me if there are any errors in the ones already there. If you know the numbers in any language that is not already there, please tell me. This article will contain the numbers one to ten in every language we can find.
#Numbers in different languages written how to#
One of the first things people often learn in a new language is how to count to ten.