It's hard not to read these in English when I see them written as roman numbers. I'm trying to learn numbers in other languages too. So far I know them in these languages:
- one two three four five six seven eight nine ten (my mother tongue)
- tahi rua toru wha rimu ono whitu waru iwa tekau (te reo maori)
- un deux trois quatre cinq six sept huit neuf dix (français)
- ichi 一 ni 二 san 三 shi (or yon) 四 go 五 roku 六 shichi (or nana) 七 hachi 八 kyu 九 ju 十 (I can recite the Japanese numbers fine, but I only remembered half of the kanji - thanks to my computer for filling in the gaps there. I found this cool learning tune too)
- uno dos tres cuatro cinco seis siete ocho nueve diez (espanol)
- eins zwei drei fier fünf sechs sieben acht nein zehn (Deutsch)
- jeden twa trzy cztery piec szesc siedem osiem dziewiec dziesiec (Polish. My pronunciation of these is still a long way off. I also only have the spelling because my friend was showing me I'd be better off learning them phonetically than reading them)
- tasi lua tolu fa lima ono fitu valu iva sefulu (Samoan ...okay I admit I didn't know number 10, but the rest are easy because I know it's like counting in Maori, but with a different phonetic alphabet)
- jedan dwa tri... deset = 1, 2, 3, 10 (Croatian. Thankfully not too different from Polish, which helps)
I'll teach you to count to ten in chinese when you get here :-)
ReplyDeleteoops I forgot to ask you - next time!
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