Saturday, 8 December 2007

Counting to ten

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10...
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)
After that my knowledge is a little bit rough. Just give me a bit of warning first before you ask me to recite them:

  • 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)
And the coolest thing is, aside from Poland, I've been to all of the countries where these numbers are used, and it has definitely come in handy to know them... and then I only have to resort to the international language of hand gestures when I 'parle comme une vache espagnole'!

2 comments:

  1. I'll teach you to count to ten in chinese when you get here :-)

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  2. oops I forgot to ask you - next time!

    ReplyDelete