Impact of spoken language on ability to do math?

[cattiechaos]

I recently came across an interesting book that devoted a chapter to the impact of language on learning math. It didn't come as a surprise to me that the author slated Chinese (and other Asian) students as having a natural advantage in math, because of the language they learn it in.

Comments

[lacunaz]

I don't see, given these examples, how the Chinese language is more "literal" with numbers. Because Chinese uses the "three-tens" system instead of using a single different word ("thirty")? And how is "three-fifths", which I think conceptualizes very easily as 3/5, less literal than the Chinese equivalent? This could just be me not getting it.

IDK, this smacks of the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis.

[cattiechaos]

I'm going to give you an excerpt from Gladwell's novel to see if that clarifies anything:

We say fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, and nineteen, but we don't say oneteen, twoteen, threeteen, and fiveteen. We say forty and sixty, which sounds like four and six + "ty", but we don't say "five"ty or "three"ty or "two"ty. For numbers greater than twenty, we put the decade first and the unit number second ("twenty-two") but for the "teens", we do it the other way around "fourteen, eighteen". He uses this to back up his argument that the number system in English is irregular.

Oops, better cite my sources:

Gladwell, Malcolm. Outliers: the Story of Success. New York: Little, Brown and, 2008. pg. 227-30.

[cattiechaos]

I think elf and zwölf are the only irregulars for German, much less than English. Thank you very much for the insight on Danish, though, that was really interesting.

[cattiechaos]

Also, could I ask for clarification on some Danish? Apparently the Danish word for 'ninety' is 'halvfemsindstyvende', or 'half fifth times twenty'. What exactly is meant by 'half fifth'?

[ditdatdo]

As I understand it, roughly:

halv = half
fem = five
sinds = times
tyvende = twenty

The halvfem part doesn't mean "half of five", but "five minus a half". So, the sum is 4.5 x 20 = 90.

[cattiechaos]

Thanks so much! That really helps.

[tortipede]

Interesting. That sounds a bit like the way Old English deals with hundreds: feorþe healf hund (the fourth a half hundred, i.e. three full hundreds and the fourth one's only a half) = 350.

[pne]

Apparently the Danish word for 'ninety' is 'halvfemsindstyvende', or 'half fifth times twenty'.

That's the full/etymological form. As I understand it, it's usually shortened to "halvfems".

[cattiechaos]

I did find that out, although I still found the literal definition perplexing - "half fifth" referring to 4.5 instead of half of five, that is. Very interesting, though.

[conuly]

I do know of one math curriculum that takes the time to explicitly explain to kids that although in normal talk we say "eleven, twelve, thirteen", in math what we're really saying* is "onety two" and so on.

*I don't know if they use that terminology after the explanation on place value, or if it's just the explanation. It's only in the early stages that they would bother with that, I should think.