Skip Navigation

In how many languages can you count to 10?

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!

Bonus question: do you ever do your counting in a non-native language, just to make it more interesting?

203 comments
  • Lol do we count swedish, norweigan and danish as different languages? Btw other languages are my two native ones: hungarian and english, and then i know spanish because i had it in highschool and i lived 4 months there(cant really speak it anymore sadly) and then croatian because i had one if my friends teach it to me. I used to know some japanese but i also forgot that so without that the total is 5 i guess.

    Bonus answer: as for everyday counting i do it either in hungarian or english so no i dont count in my non-native languages. My brain gets fried if i try to do maths for example in swedish. If i do english maths its no problem but i still prefer hungarian when i do large calculations without any paper.

    • Yes, the Germanic languages all count separately. Canadian French doesn't count differently from France French because they call it "French" and it's essentially completely understandable. I've known Bavarians who insist Hamburgers are unintelligible, although it's all German.

      I can almost understand Danish. Almost. Words, here and there. But not Swedish at all.

      For the purposes of this count, if it's called a different name, it's a different language, regardless of how closely related. If it's called the same language, but they've drifted dialectically so much natives can barely understand each other, it's still the same language.

  • 4:

    • English (native)
    • Spanish (school)
    • French (school)
    • Korean (Taekwondo)

    Hopefully next week I'll add Polish--I'm on day 3 of learning it in an app.

  • Dutch, English, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, Danish, Latin, Kmer.

    • Wow. Impressive list!

      • Yeah, no issue with counting to 10. The rest however... Im really bad in learning languages, I've had German and French in school for 13 years yet I can't speak either. I know English besides Dutch because of the internet and subtitles on TV. I wanted to learn languages like Norwegian, Latin and Russian but I gave up because I just don't remember words that well. Same with history, I remember stories but can't remember dates. I'm better at logic, like math and chemistry. But at least I know how to order up to 10 beers in multiple languages.

  • I can count to ten in seven languages. Not as many as some of the others here, I suppose?

    Yes, I sometimes count in one of my target languages.

  • 5 languages so far (German, french, english, 2 african languages). It would probably be 9 when mandarin, cantonese, spanish and arabic gets up to par in a few years.

  • Currently it's only English and Japanese. At one point I looked up how to count to ten in French, but I clearly don't remember it. I can also count to seven in Chinese (pitch probably incorrect) because of a song that starts off counting and stops at seven for whatever reason.

    Though if we're counting writing, I'd be obligated to add Chinese because, at the very least, 1-10 in Japanese and Chinese are the same for just the numbers alone.

  • 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").

  • English, Cantonese, Mandarin, German, Japanese

    I'm native at the first two, fluent in Mandarin, currently learning German, and Japanese I learned by watching Puyo Puyo gameplay.

  • Three: English, Welsh, German.

    I used to be able to do French, Italian and Japanese, but I've managed to forget everything above about five.

    • That's my problem. I live in the US, and there's essentially no opportunity to verbally practice anything. The only options, really, would be Hindi or Spanish, and where I live there's a significant Somali immigrant community, but if you don't use it, you lose it!

      My girlfriend in HS had a German mother and a Japanese father. Her mother left Germany when she was 16. After I came back from my extended stay in Germany, speaking fluid German, I visited her parents, and tried to have a conversation with her mother in German. After a few minutes, she said - a little sadly - that she just didn't remember German anymore because it had been so long since she'd spoken it.

203 comments