(Untitled)

[topaz]

dear french,
yay, i like you.
<3,
Rosie

dear french numbers,
...really? are you serious?
>:(,
Rosie

Comments

[ellisbben]

French has a fixation on the number twenty, right? Do you have to say ridiculous things like "four twenties minus two" for seventy-eight or is it the equally crazy "three twenties plus eighteen?"

[idoru]

hm.. 10 20 30 40 50 60, then '70' is '60-10' [incl. 60-11 - 60-19], and then 4-20 for '80.' '90,' as you might guess, is 4-20-10. Seriously.

[topaz]

oh, you beat me. XD

[topaz]

actually, the 70s are 60+10. but 80 is "4 20's," and 19 is "4 20s + 10." whaaat.

[jude]

it's probably because of first graders.
Seriously, whenever we play the number game we get at least five instances of "sixty-seven, sixty-eight, sixty-nine, sixty-ten.." and they'd go right on, probably up to sixty-nineteen before they figured out what was wrong if we didn't stop them.
maybe the French figured it was just easier to let them go ahead and count that way.

[justpeachee]

haha, I definitely love that explanation! I'm just glad that I started french in the 21st Century, because saying "mille neuf cent quatre-vingt dix neuf" is just a royal pain in the ass.