How to understand Danish numbers
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- Опубликовано: 25 июл 2024
- It is often said that the Danish counting system is one of the most bizarre, baffling, nonsensical counting systems in the world. I am here to offer my perspective on how to think of it and why it's not as ridiculous as you might think!
P.S. For a fun conversation topic, ask a Dane how they understand their counting system. Don't expect them to agree with this video. Every Dane seems to have a different opinion!
Wow, I heard that Dannish numeric system is super complicated, but the way you explain it it actually seems very logical
but 70 is half way to the 4th score..? that would be 40.
@@blacksaltscotland no.. just like 50 is halfway to the 3rd score = 2,5. Being halfway to the 4th score means you're at 3,5 score.
As a Dane, this is absolutely brilliant. I first heard about the "complexity" of our number system from Tom Scott and his explaination didn't make much sense to me. You explained it beautifully. I guess the "18" example is a pretty good example of how that can manifest in other languages, but we do do it to an extreme in Danish and German.
I don't think German is very extreme compared to languages like danish or even french in that regard
As a Swede, I’m still just as confused as everyone else over your hoax number system 😂😂 I’ve worked with Danes a long time, understand pretty much everything besides this! Complete bonkers
It didn't make sense to you because he's purposefully trying to make it look as complicated as possible!
Still struggling to remember some of the numbers but this helped me so much!
I'm really glad to hear it helped!
Very good video! Hands down the best video I have seen explaining how Danish numbers work, all the other ones I've seen either don't explain it well enough or just massively play up the "craziness" of it. Takk :)
Bravooooo !!!! Thank you for explaining this to me !!! I drove me mad as no one knew how to explain this to me . Now , that my brain calmed down , I ll be able to practice this and remember it once for all ! Thank you again ! :) :) :)
I found proof that the Danes in the old days counted their livestock by the score (i.e. in groups of 20, Danish "snes") when I read the childhood memories of the great composer Carl Nielsen (1865-1931). "Min Fynske Barndom" ("My Childhood on Funen") is a brilliantly entertaining book. As a small boy he was often made to look after a flock of geese and, later, "en halv snes køer" ("about ten cows", literally: "half a score of cows"). Further on Nielsen talks about a book with missing pages:"der manglede en halv snes sider". He also uses it to refer to people. Describing the military band he played with in the regiment he writes: "Musikkorpset bestod af en snes mand eller lidt over, når reservemusikerne spillede med" (20 players, or just over when there were extras).
Growing up in Denmark I never thought our numbers were strange, but having lived abroad for a number of years now and most recently in Norway where the languages are so similar but number are so different (fifty in Norwegian is really just five-ten) I have a new appreciation for the Danish numbers. I really liked your video because you explained the history and meaning behind the numbers :D
best explanation I've ever seen on this EVER
Your explanation is the best. Sitting in a refugee camp in Herning making my first steps in Danish and this video is brilliant.
thanks, and welcome to Denmark! i hope you soon feel settled here ❤️
This is so helpful! I learned the Danish numbering system decades ago as an exchange student in Randers, but I never understood its origin. Thank you for such a clear explanation!
tusind tak! it finally makes sense now :)
Thank you for making this video! Is really helpful for me cause I'm learning danish by myself right now! Thank you so much!!!
Marvelous ...Loved your video...Greetings from Jylland😉I sended your video to a friend in America, that has an interest in Scandinavia.
Well done. You really made great points about it being just what you're used to.
Very well explained. Thank you Aimee.
Thank you so much for debunking all the non-sense of learning the Danish number system. The score system has helping a lot to create mental associations to learn the numbers above 50. You're an inspiration! Thanks!
Thanks so much! Very helpful!
Thank you so much for this great video! Instantly fell in love ❤ math and a good teacher ❤
Awesome video, thanks. Always cool to understand the origins of a word, and the score concept makes total sense. The smaller number first concept exists also in German, so if you are familiar with that, it’s not that weird at all, but actually fairly easy to remember.
A wonderful informative video. I did not know this system.
When I explain the numbers from 50 to a 100 to someone, I use the 20 system. In Danish 20 is called: en snes.
So I would say: 50 is halvtreds. Three snese (3x20) minus half a snes=10. 70 is halvfjerds: 4 snese minus half a snes. 80 is firs: 4x20. Halvfems is 5x20 minus half a snes.
Now the real difficult part is when you want to say for example: the 78. day of the year. In Danish: den syvoghalvfjerdsindstyvende dag i året. Good luck to everyone learning Danish🇩🇰
Thank you! This is a very confusing topic but your explanation is very clear!
That's insane! I'm looking forward to live in Denmark next year, and I'm crying to death to learn it, but for sure it's going to be an unique experience! Thanks aimee for the video :)
Thank you so much! This is very insightful 😃
Excellent explanation. I finally get it.
thanks for demystifying that. Very enlightening.
The most brilliant explanation of dansk numbers I was looking for! Thank you
you're so welcome! glad it was useful for you :)
great video thank you so much!
Thank you very much for your clear explanation. As a beginner in the Danish language, I needed to make some sense about your counting system. Now that I've overcome it, it's much easier for me to learn numbers.
By the way, your "half" concept applies in the same way in my language, Catalan, when we talk about the clock. For example, we say two-quarters of three when we refer to half past two, and that sounds weird for many non catalan speakers. So you're not alone. Meget tak !!!
Oh wow, that’s really interesting about Catalan!
Enlightening! You saved me from the trouble of memorizing 🌸
This is exceptionally well explained. You should do this with all Germanic languages. Very impressive.
Tack! Väldigt bra video, räknesystemet var nästintill obegripligt innan jag såg den här.
Det kan jeg virkelig godt forstå! Svensk og norsk er meget mere forståelige med tallene, men jeg synes dansk er mere sjovt 😁
So rightly said "Danish numbers are not weird as I think". Thank you so much for explaining in amazing and fun way 🙏
Great video!
I think what makes it difficult is also that the names are shorted. When it used to be the full name of halvtreds indstyvenedele it was way more clear what was going on. It is two full 20s and then a half 20. But with the shortening it doesn't seem to make sense at first.
MEU DEUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUS, VOCÊ É LINDA MARAVILHOSA EXCEPCIONAL OBRIGADOOOOOOOOOOOOO
God this helped a lot for me to understand...thank you so much!
OMG, I love you! 🙏
I really, really struggle with the numbers but this way I might be able to cope!
I understand the struggle. Even after living here 3 years, the moment i hear "halvfems" my brain immediately thinks it's something to do with 5. Nooooo!! Anyway, glad it helped!
Great video
This was a great video! I've just got to the numbers module on Duolingo and it made me very unhappy. I think I'll have a much better chance of remembering 40, 50, 60 etc. now I understand where they come from. Thanks for your help!
Heh, i remember getting to numbers on Duolingo!
- What's "tres"?
- I don't know, 3?
- WRONG. 60. Now, what's "halvtreds"?
- Probably 30?
- NOPE! 50, lol
@@aimeerivers Haha, that was how I tried to work it out too. 1 to 10 were fine and more or less the same as in the Swedish course. Then 'seksten' had a different vowel sound from 'seks' and I thought, OK Danish, this is a fun game but get it together please. Then I had one of those ones where they show you four numbers in boxes with the figures written there, and there was 'tyve' (fine), 'tredive' (fine), 'tres' (...what?) and 'halvfjerds' (wait, go back) and at that point I realised I needed help.
No surprise they left it so late in the Danish course before they dared introduce numbers to us!
This is like, In every language. Even French! My brain in exploding! Also this lady’s voice is heaven in my ears
(Big Joel sent me btw)
Awesome. Tak!
Thank you!
My head exploded at 0:06 when you started to count the animals
Edit: After watching the full video I understands this so much better. Thank you
We don't sheeps.
We count dryed herrings on a stick. (ref: Skanør, Dragør fishing and selling herrings)
One stick contains 20 herrings.
If you got 2½ stick of herring you simply get 50 herrings. It is so simple ;-)
Like dusin is 12, we use "snes" for 20 and kilo for 1000.
thanks!
Hello, as from what I’ve read, carpenters in Denmark used the half-three (3 - 1/2) and so on, and snes = 20, and sindstyve = x20, for measuring and building houses, but it can equally be counting fishes in the hanseatic villages(germany) and around ports in denmark, norway, sweden, and germany.
I learned how the number system worked in third grade from my math books / teacher, some 40 years ago, but many simply don’t retain such knowledge, as often people just remember halvtreds = 50.
And also in many languages are used to how to say time ( the only change is the half-full cup, instead of the overflowing cup by a half ;-)
Finally Germans use the same way of using LSB (Least significant bit first like Intel processors ) acht-und-funfzig = otte og halvtreds = 58
Spændende. Thank you for a very informative video.
You just ordered a 1000-liters of milk. Thank you!
In Dutch we do the same, we say 58 achtenvijftig (eight and fifty) But I have to say when you quickly have to write down numbers it sometimes gets confusing, imaging some people still have the audacity to tell you their phonenumber in tens.. I often just write backwards 😅 I leave some space for the tens and first write down the 8 and then fill in the 5 after
i pretty much always do that when writing Danish numbers! 😅
nice!!!!
Ahh I just realized that the reason we are so happy is because we see the glass as half full instead of half emty😜
That makes sense, thanks😂
12 is a dusin. 20 is a snes. 3 dusin = 36, 4 snese = 80.
Absolutely wonderful . . .lived here years and did not this!!!
It’s definitely not obvious at all, is it?! 😊
Good explanation, even danes doesn`t know this, but the term "score" is not right even if the idea is, we use snes which also means 20, and usually used for specifying an amount of eggs, we have very few sheep here,.
Oh, I have one question please : What about 30 and 40 ? How do you explain them ? I have just got the 3 scores and that being 60 , so I am ok with half 3 scores =50, and all the numbers above , but what about 30 and 40 ? Help ! :) And thank you in advance ! :)
Sorry, i don't have a good answer to those. I just remember them as tredive and fyrre, which to me sounds similar to thirty and forty.
@@aimeerivers Ok :) . Thank you Aimee for quic answer ! I shall do the same ! I am so chuffed about being able to count ... I was going to my husband today : Ask me to say 50 ( and so on ) in Danish !! Hahaha :) Have a great evening , Aimee !
@@aimeerivers For 40, it gets even weirder when you learn that it used to be 'fyrretyve' (it has different etymology, it comes from something that was pretty much four ten - old norse fjorir tigir -> fyritiughu / førretiuge / fyrretiwe)
@@Halinn Mebbe..."halvtos" and "tos". =D Do not reply to this in Danish or you will order 1000- liters of milk.
Regards from Nørway
@@jarls5890 haha. good one.
My math teacher told us the 20s came about from Skåne where sild would flood into a little fjord, brining people from off of the Danish Kingdom to buy fish.
And that the 20s are like a stick of 20 fish.
And so people would come from all over each with their own ways of counting depending on the local area, and it'd all be jumbled together into what we have today.
The question isn't how complicated is the number system
more why is it so divergent from the other Norse derived languages?
I'm Dutch and we actually call 2:30 half three as well.. We also say 21 as 1-and-20.. Never knew Danish does it like that as well!
No base 20 system though, you're still weird on that ^^
Mange Tak!!!! ✨✨✨
no, even though im a native english speaker i have noticed that -ty is a form of "ten" almost all my life
I think her point was that you don't calculate it from scratch any time you use a number like that :)
We count in tens until 40
As a dane, this makes no sense to me. I just count like i always do. Though, it would make sense if 30 was named halvtreds, since it is exactly half of 60
As a dane this makes perfect sense, its cultural baggage from a deep rural past.. that now exist as an almost esoteric system for those who havent insight on the logic behind
And this, my friends, is why the rest of the Scandinavians are speaking english while in Denmark
50 = halvtredieSNES = 1 SNES =20 , a halv snes = 10 ..so 50 =half third snes = (20+20+10) ,, 60 (treds)= 3 snese (20+20+20). ,,70( halvfjerds) = half fourth snes ( 20+20+20+ 10) 80 ( firs)= four snese (20+20+20+20),,, 90 ( halvfems) = half fifth snes = 20 +20+20+20 + 10 ...
The clock thing is the same as in Indonesian. For 14:30, instead of saying setengah (half) dua (two), you say setengah (half) tiga (three)
Danish number system is very much influenced by the French number system - also in multiple of 20
You should make ASMR videos. This is very relaxing.
Really? Oh that’s lovely to hear, thank you! I don’t have the ASMR response so I wouldn’t know how to make a video without being cliche.
Danish concept about clock is the same with Indonesian
ah, very cool! thanks for letting me know! 😊
Im danish and I didn't know our number system worked in the multiples of 20. Rofl
no, no they are
I'm even more confused now:)
2:05 - Who actually refers to 2:30 as "half three" in English? It's properly spoken as "half past two".
2:00 = two o'clock
2:15 = quarter past two
2:30 = half past two
2:45 = quarter to three
Been that way since preschool
i know, that's how it is in English, but not in Danish. nor in several other European languages.
@@aimeerivers - Thanks for your response, Aimee! ❤ I was making a reference to a point in the video where you said, "In English, 2:30 is called 'half three', not 'half two'," and questioning that statement because I grew up calling it "half past two", having been born and raised in New York City, USA.
@@AlexSh789 ahhh now i see what you mean. yes, growing up in the south of england it was quite normal to drop the ‘past’ in ‘half past two’. both are valid, but ‘half two’ is very common.
@@aimeerivers - Nice! So, does "half two" mean 1:30 (half to two) or 2:30 (half past two)?
As contrast, I also grew up speaking Russian, where 2:30 would be called "пол-третьего", which is literally, "half of the third (hour)". ... Coincidentally close to Danish, actually
@@AlexSh789 in the English i grew up speaking, “half two” means “half past two” which means 2:30.
cool yeah, i can see that Russian is similar to Danish there!
she is trying to convince us that is not insane but nääääää =)
Okay, the common opinion is then that Danes are just mad. 😁😁😁
The Swedish number system is much more like English: 5 fem, 15 femton, 50 femtio, 58 femtioåtta
What's really bizarre is why Danish's counting system is so unique among all the nearby languages
Just a product of not changing it when everyone else changed theirs.
The Danish placement of ones before tens is the same as German, and the other Scandinavian countries once did it too, you can sometimes hear the oldest Norwegians still doing it even.
Counting in scores was common in the past, as mentioned English once did it a lot, but again all the Danish neighbors did it as well.
The "half towards" system rather than "half from" is also common not just in Germanic languages but in several other European language branches. Though most languages have deprecated it to either niche use or just using it for half towards second, and ditching half towards third, fourth, etc.
So all that happened was that Danish didn't change with everyone else as they moved away from those systems, not that Danish somehow evolved totally unique features.
If I had to make a guess as to why Danish didn't change with its neighbors it would be that Danish isn't a very rigidly controlled language. While there is a central language authority in Denmark they do not try to design the language for specific use, or try to keep it in a specific way like many other language authorities do. They will add whatever words people use to the language whether they "fit" or not, and they will rarely force people to change usage for ideological reasons, even when ideological changes are made they are usually optional and not forced.
In other words the Danish system survived because the Danish people use it, continue to use it and haven't decided its a hassle. The banks tried to change it by adopting Swedish style numbers, but they gave up trying to get the population to accept it when it didn't take off.
Bedste måde at forklare tallene på jeg er stødt på
Easy
Yes it's only English speakers that find Danish numbers extremely confusing... 😂 When i visit i hope the stores will show me numbers when i buy something or i will just have to hand them a fist of money and have them pick what they want.
Swedes die on the inside when faced with danish numbers.. You can see it in their eyes, they loose the will to live
It is more "counting barrels" than "counting sheeps". Traders of fish and corn invented the system.
English Speakers: "Danish numbers are confusing."
Also English Speakers: "one thousand, one million, one billion, one trillion, ..."
Im so triggered by the fact that 40 is fyrre and not tos. Don’t tell me that Danish shepherd didn’t mark 2 scores if he counted 40 sheep 🐑
i agree, that would make so much sense! but no one ever said it all had to be logical!
Sheeps has never been a thing in Denmark, so I doubt it has anything to do with sheeps.
lol the northern irish say full for drunk too lol
10 = ti (10) ten
20 = tvende-ti/tyve (2 x 10) twenty
30 = trende-ti/tredive (3 x 10) thirty
40 = fire-ti (4 x 10) forty
50 = halv-tredje-sinds-tyve (2½ x 20) half-third-times-twenty
60 = tre-sinds-tyve (3 x 20) three-times-twenty
70 = halv-fjerde-sinds-tyve (3½ x 20) half-fourth-times-twenty
80 = fire-sinds-tyve (4 x 20) four-times-twenty
90 = halv-femte-sinds-tyve (4½ x 20) half-fifth-times-twenty
100 = fem-sinds-tyve/et lidet hundrede (5 x 20) five-times-twenty/a small hundred
110 = halv-sjette-sinds-tyve (5½ x 20) half-sixth-times-twenty
120 = seks-sinds-tyve/et stort hundrede (6 x 20) six-times-twenty/a big hundred
130 = halv-syvende-sinds-tyve (6½ x 20) half-seventh-times-twenty
140 = syv-sinds-tyve (7 x 20) seven-times-twenty
etc.
The highest I have seen is half-seventeenth (16½), used about age. But in theory they should continue up to at least half-twentieth (19½). I have a theory that it originates from Roman numerals. A half in Roman numerals is 1 extra crossed stave. Thus 2½ becomes III with the third stave crossed, half the way to the 3rd. And 4½ is a crossed V, half the way to the 5th. And 9½ is a crossed X, half the way to the 10th.
somehow you managed to make it even worse! 😅