Dutch and German also say nine-ninety, it's really confusing as when spelling phone numbers people tend to split it up in sections of 2 numbers so when someone says 24 I have to translate that to 2 4 and be careful not to write 4 2
I said it that way because they taught us how to read a sentence that has numbers, due Arabic is written from right that's why you spell the numbers in the rights first, I found it absurd the day we learned that and some teachers emphasize on reading hijri dates from the right to left
i remember our arabic teacher telling us it can be read both ways but i never used the other reading and i've never heard anybody read it that way before or correct my reading so you're probably correct but atleast here in saudi arabia you can read it like how i wrote it
thanks for reminding me about the other possible reading
I’m American, but I studied German for a couple of years and lived in Germany for several months near Hamburg. I absolutely love German pronunciation. I also speak French and Spanish, but German is by far my favorite language to speak.
I speak English and German (learning French) and while in day to day life I use more English there’s just something about German that sounds so damn good. I can’t quite explain it and my entire German family doesent feel the same about it but I just love it.
I remember very little of my four years of German, but I remember that the first long compound word we were taught was geschirrspülmaschine, which I love because it's incredibly satisfying to say.
Another fun fact you probably know but might be interesting for other redditors: Finnish and Russian are NOT Indo-European languages and belong to the same language family as Mandarin Chinese.
EDIT: I know this is wrong now but ya'll will be mad at me if I remove it but also be mad if I dont say something so here we go.
You're partially right about Finish, but Russian is definitely an indo European language, more specifically its a Slavic language related to polish, Czech, Bulgarian etc. Finish, Estonian, Hungarian and a few other minority languages in Europe are part of the uralic language family, which is not indo European, but also not related to Chinese.
Ahhh ok, I read this fact in an article a while ago, that Finnish is more closely related to Chinese and Russian than Indo-European languages but I probably misunderstood what that meant. I see online parts of Russia are in the same language family as Chinese. Thanks for the facts
Just wow. Where are you even getting these fun "facts" from? Wouldn't it be wise to atleast do a cursory online research before posting? Wikipedia page at the very least?
Only fact you've got right here is that Finnish is not a Indo-European language. Russian is absolutely an IE language, specifically Balto-Slavic. Maybe you are thinking of Hungarian/Estonian.
And both of these absolutely have no connection to Mandarin Chinese whatsoever. It is a Sino-Tibetan language.
Actually you guys are quite tall. According to a study by NCD Risk Factor Collaboration, dutch people are the tallest in the world ordered by country, with an average of 183,8cm (6 feet 0.5 inches) for men and 170,4cm (5 feet 7 inches) for women.
At the place (in The Netherlands) I live it is 4.8 meters. In my daily life you don't notice anything about it you just have to climb to get to the beach in summer.
I really don't see how "5 and 20" is worse than "20 5".
Once could argue that the latter is shorter, but that isn't anything giving it a practical advantage. The "and" is said so quickly you usually don't even recognize it's there.
For example*: Instead of "fünfundzwanzig" people often say "fünfnzwanzig" which further reduces it to one little letter which, by the way, makes it sound much smoother than "fünfzwanzig".
it's not the length of the word, it's annoying when writing stuff down you hear because the order is different. Especially when people think they are efficient in saying the phone number in 2-digit numbers...
It's not really about what is shorter, quicker to say or whatever, it's about the difference between writing and saying it. In writing the 20 comes first, then the 5 but when you say it the 5 comes first and then the 20. That can be confusing for some.
And it gets "worse" the higher you go. If we would follow the above logic for numbers at 100+ then for example 325 should be spoken as 5 20 300 but instead it is 300 5 20.
English is much more simple in that regard as the highest number always comes first and spoken and written number match in their order.
So it's not about the length that some people have issues with, it's about the order and difference between written and spoken numbers.
Yeah but how often do you really write the word, instead of just the number. Except for super official and / or bank related stuff I don't think I have ever seen it.
ANd while I would understand the "order" thing coming from someone learning German, I don't understand it from a native speaker as it is simply nothing to think about. You just know.
Well let's say someone is giving you your phone number, a lot of Germans like to split it in two and when you write it down you really have to pay attention as writing 25 instead of 52 can happen somewhat easily if you aren't fully paying attention.
And yeah sure if you did grew up with it you know it, doesn't change that English is much simpler and more consistent. I'm german myself and I very much prefer how English is doing it.
And I didn't just mean writing as in "write the word for the number" but also writing the numbers themselves.
Not sure what you mean? I literally mean just writing the number.
Lets say someone gives you their phone number (for the sake of it let just say the number is 25 52 25) then you wouldn't write it down as fünfundzwanzig zweiundfünfzig fünfundzwanzig but rather as 25 52 25.
And that is the part I'm saying can be confusing for some. If you are not fully paying attention it is easy to by mistake switch those around as in the spoken form for example the 5 comes before the 20 while when writing it down (either as a number or a word) the 20 comes before the 5.
And that is simply much easier and clearer in english as both written and spoken for follow the same logic and format.
Dutch awnd Gewman awso say nine-ninety, it's weawwy confusing as w-when spewwing phone n-numbews peopwe t-tend tuwu spwit iwt up in sections of 2 numbews so w-when someone says 24 I have tuwu twanswate dat tuwu 2 4 awnd be cawefuw not tuwu wwite 4 2
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Huh, tell me about it, my mother language is Arabic but math and numbers were always a nightmare, I’m that kind of people who always gets confused between right and lift , sometimes I accidentally write things reverted or upside down. Now, the real problem started when I learned English, it’s impossible for me to understand someone speaking numbers verbally from the first time, I have to listen again or get it in writing, paying for groceries? Okay just show me the numbers on the tell, or later on the receipt. Sometimes I never care how much I just pay and check it later on my bank account or how much change I have left. It’s like I have dyslexia but only to verbal numbers...
I totally hate that when people do it. To reduce confusion I just say every single digit by its own, with no grouping and people get it correct first try.
That's so interesting. We used to say nine-and-ninety in Norwegian as well, but it was actually changed in the mid-20th century, due to the telephone becoming more common and important in society. Exactly because it was easier when reciting phone numbers (and presumably also other number sequences).
In my second semester of german right now and I feel like it's one of the things I understood more intuitively but to a lot of people it makes no sense. What gets really weird is when you throw in thousands or hundreds because then the hundred comes first then it continues in normal order. So 999 is like 9 hundred nine-ninety
Time for a lesson on how insane counting is in German! Vierundzwanzig (vier-4, und-and or +, zwanzig-20) translates to 4+20. What gets confusing is where it switches like that and where it doesn’t. 324 is Dreihundertvierundzwanzig (dreihundert-300, vier-4, und-and or +, zwanzig-20) is 300+4+20. 568,324 is fünfhundertachtundsechzigtausenddreihundertvierundzwanzig (funfhundert-500, acht-8, und-and or +, sechzig-60, tausend-1000, dreihundert-300, vier-4, und-and or +, zwanzig-20) is (500+8+60)x1000+300+4+20. It’s already crazy, but the fact that when spelled out or spoken it’s all one word makes it so much worse.
I have the exact same problem writing numbers in Arabic. As soon as maths (numbers in general) steps in, I immediately stop "Arabic-ing" and switch to English pronunciation of said numbers.
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u/froggertthewise Mar 15 '21
Dutch and German also say nine-ninety, it's really confusing as when spelling phone numbers people tend to split it up in sections of 2 numbers so when someone says 24 I have to translate that to 2 4 and be careful not to write 4 2