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18 comments
Bob Thomson

@cmconseils what helped me remember the numbers best were the order numbers on McDonald’s receipts :) I still have more trouble with 11-16 for some reason. Often mistranslate them when folks tell me the time of an appointment on the phone.

Jens Jäger

@cmconseils #Danish enters the arena and laughs maniacally: 9+(5-½)x20

Deborah Pickett

@cmconseils I want to see someone add a third panel to this meme with Danish.

nine
five
minus half
twenty

Corey

@Isocat @cmconseils The Danish and the French are quasi-vigesimal, but the Danes start at fifty (halvtres) where the French don’t start until seventy (soixante-dix). Both French and Danish agree that “four twenties” equals eighty (firs; quatre-vingt[s]).

Isocat

@thealmostbear @cmconseils Yeah. About 12 years ago a snotty Paris taxi driver pretended not to understand me. I'm not fluent, but taxi conversations are well within my capability; I recited the address smoothly and with a pretty-damn-good Parisian accent. He left the car in Neutral with his foot on the brake at the curbside and stared straight out the windshield as though I weren't in the car.

Yup: his problem was I said "Nonant-et-un" ("Ninety-and-one"). Once I said "Quattre-vingt onze" ("Four-Twenty Eleven") instead, he suddenly understood just fine every word I said.

@thealmostbear @cmconseils Yeah. About 12 years ago a snotty Paris taxi driver pretended not to understand me. I'm not fluent, but taxi conversations are well within my capability; I recited the address smoothly and with a pretty-damn-good Parisian accent. He left the car in Neutral with his foot on the brake at the curbside and stared straight out the windshield as though I weren't in the car.

Corey

@cmconseils @Isocat If you had said “nonante-et-un” literally anywhere else in France, and especially anywhere in Belgium/Switzerland/Québec, they would have understood you just fine.

Isocat

@thealmostbear @cmconseils Oh, he understood me just fine the first time; comprehension wasn't the issue.

Matthew

@thealmostbear @cmconseils After FOUR-TWENTIES TEN-NINE, “cent” feels like a reward.

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