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?
English, German, French, Dutch, Finnish.
With a bit of effort I might get pretty close in Spanish or Latin, but I’d probably make some mistakes, so that doesn’t count.
English (school/friends): one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
German (school): eins, zwei, drei, vier, fünf, sechs (hehe sex), sieben, acht, neun, zehn
Marathi (native): Ek, don, teen, char, pach, saha, saat, aath, naoo, daha
Hindi (friends/school): Ek, do, teen, char, panch, cchah, saat, aath, naww, thus
I have not heard of Marathi, but from the context, you’re Indian? Hindi is the official national language, but most Indians grow up learning a local regional language at home, IIRC.
you’re Indian?
Yepp
Hindi is the official national language
Oh noooo nonono. This is a large misconception (kinda one that was spread intentionally).
So here’s the deal. India is very similar to Europe, in that there are hundreds of little cultures that have had very different histories, very different cultures, very different religious practices, etc. At no point in history was India (the current borders) under one state, just like Europe wasn’t under one state.
India has 22 official languages, out of which Hindi is the most spoken one (largely in northern India in the basin of the Ganga).
Hindu nationalists have this idea that India needs to be a nation state to protect itself from foreign threats. “A very important step towards that is by having one language that is spoken by all. English can’t be that language cuz it belongs to the colonizers. Hindi however, is Indian. Hence, all Indians must speak it.”
The problem however, is that those that don’t speak Hindi don’t want Hindi imposed on them. According to them, English is a perfectly fine bridge language. South Indians generally hold this position. Their languages are very very different from Hindi. Even their scripts are different (like how English and Japanese have different scripts).
Lemme explain this by giving an example of Europe. Imagine Britain colonizes all of mainland Europe. Europe has never been united before. However, to defeat the British, Europe unites for the first time. They drive the British out, and establish their own state.
Now, a group of Catholic Christian nationalists believe that Europe must become more united to fight against such threats. They want all Europeans to speak one language. This language turns out to be German. State institutions across Europe start making their employees only talk in German. Understandably, the French are pissed with this.
That’s kinda what’s happening in India right now. Many (especially south Indians) are pretty mad about this and are resisting.
I have not heard of Marathi
It’s the language spoken in the state of Maharashtra (whose capital is Mumbai).
83 million people speak it natively, while 16 million speak it as a second language. It shares the same script with Hindi. So if you know Marathi, it’s kinda easy to learn Hindi and vice versa. There are many common words and stuff. I think a huge majority of Marathi folk can speak an ok amount of Hindi today (largely because of internal immigration from North India to cities in Maharashtra and the aforementioned “Hindi imposition”).
Thanks for the detailed explanation! I’ve worked with a ton of Indians (software development, East coast US), and I picked that up from one of them. It hadn’t occurred to me to verify it, mainly because it wasn’t critical knowledge for me; just trivia.
Thanks for the detailed explanation!
Aww no worries <3
picked that up from one of them
Ah. Nah, it’s a case of “repeat a lie again and again till it becomes the truth”. I vaguely remember us being taught about this national language thing in school too! Kinda like the Mandela effect (but very likely spread intentionally).
English, Croatian, Polish and German.
English, Spanish, russian
English, German, Austrian and Eastern Swiss
How similar are Austrian and eastern Swiss?
It’s both German
Eastern Swiss is German, you sly dog. So
it’sis Austrian. I think they even call it “German” don’t they? That’s like distinguishing “American” and “British”.Edit: fucking autocorrect.
You might have got me there
bow many languages does Japanese count for
Ichi
Spoken: 3 at best. Counting to 10: 6.
Not just counting, but sometimes I might say a word or a phrase in another language because I find it sounds humorous in the moment. Poor Italian gets ridiculed the most 🤌🤌.
Hah! For me it’s Spanish, because I grew up in California and picked up some pidgin phrases. Mostly rude ones, which I doubt I’m pronouncing correctly.
Oh! I just remembered that I know a handful of Russian phrases, because of an… encounter… in college; but I can’t count to 10 in it. So there’s a deviation on my own question.
Hmm, can you give me an example or two to those pidgin phrases? Are they akin to car<->carro?
No. I don’t know how offensive they are; a couple are slurs against white people, but still. I don’t remember many of them, but the ones I do I’m not willing to repeat.
6 languages to 10 for me.
Counting to 20 or 100 would be a better measure of knowing the numbers of that language, since some languages become weird at 10 or 70 onwards, for example, french.
Some like Mandarin or malay, we just need to mainly just learn to 10, and it is very consistent and logical after that.
Six: Spanish, Basque, English, French, German and Polish. Natives are Basque and Spanish.
I don’t know much about Basque; I’d probably know nothing I’d it weren’t for the separatists; conflict is about the only way foreign news makes it into the US :-/
Four. English, Chinese, Japanese, German.
Among these German is the only one where I’m not confident in my language capacities… So I almost beat OP in the bet :P I just happened to have learned German up until ~A2 for career reasons but dropped it since my plans changed. Other three I’m all very fluent in. I am also learning French but ironically I only know 1/2/3 because I’m a complete newbie…
I spent the last 10 years in the US so my internal monolog is a bit messed up… I primarily count in English which is not my native language. If it is a long number I’ll use Chinese since it is more efficient (one syllable each for 0-10)
I love the story this implies!
Oh boy I do have some hilarious career-related stories! But yeah, I very seriously considered taking a job in Germany at one point (didn’t end up happening). Maybe I’ll chat a bit more about it somewhere else
Hmmm… English, French, German, Spanish. Japanese numbers, yes, but only half that if we’re counting things (iykyk 🫤). I should learn Mandarin 1-10…
My pronunciation ofc is abysmal.
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).
Turkish, English, German, Greek, Kurmanji, Japanese
Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, Swedish and Finnish.
English, French, Spanish, Inuktituk
I grew up in Labrador, where they teach Inuktituk in school. I also know a little French because I’m Canadian and a little Spainish because of American educational television.
